The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drills find VMS zone where deposit offset was thought to be North of 60 Mining News – March 12, 2021
HighGold's 2020 drill program at Johnson Tract encountered VMS-style mineralization northeast of the JT deposit.
VMS-style mineralization tapped in hole JT20-114 drilled last year at HighGold Mining's Johnson Tract project in Alaska.
HighGold Mining Inc. March 10 announced that its 2020 drilling has discovered a new zone of what appears to be zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide mineralization near the JT deposit, which opens up a whole new resource potential at the company's Johnson Tract polymetallic gold project in Southcentral Alaska.
Based on historical drilling and nine holes completed by HighGold in 2019, the JT deposit hosts 2.14 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 6.07 grams per metric ton (417,000 ounces) gold, 5.8 g/t (397,000 oz) silver, 5.85% (275.3 million pounds) zinc, 0.57% (26.8 million lb) copper, and 0.71% (37.6 million lb) lead.
Testing for a continuation of JT that had been offset by the movement of a fault that runs through the deposit, the company encountered a previously unrecognized zone of mineralization with VMS characteristics. HighGold said this is a very encouraging development as it has long been postulated that VMS-style mineralization may be present in addition to the known epithermal-style gold zones at Johnson Tract.
Highlights from two holes targeting this "Northeast Offset" include:
• Two meters averaging 13.2% zinc, 0.6% copper, 0.3 g/t gold, and 5 g/t silver in hole JT20-112.
• 7.8 meters averaging 6.1% zinc, 1.6% lead, 0.2% copper, 0.7 g/t gold, and 36 g/t silver in hole JT20-114.
Based on the alteration and mineralization observed at surface, previous explorers at Johnson tract theorized that the Northeast Offset target tested by these holes was the continuation of the JT deposit roughly 500 to 800 meters to the southwest.
However, the geology encountered in the drilling shows that this mineralization is not on the east side of the Dacite fault that sliced through the JT Deposit, as was originally postulated, but on the same side of the fault as the resource. As a result, the mineralization encountered in these holes is not the fault-displaced equivalent of JT, but a second distinct zone of mineralization located on the same western side of the Dacite fault as the deposit.
This opens up a whole new zone to explore on the west side of the fault northeast of JT, and the original offset extension of the deposit on the west side of the fault.
"These advancements in our understanding of the Johnson Tract geology represent a significant turning point for the project as they highlight the potential for mineralization anywhere within the key Dacite Tuff host stratigraphy northeast of the JT Deposit," said HighGold Mining President and CEO Darwin Green. "Equally important, it means that the 2020 NEO (Northeast Offset) drilling was centered too far to the west and the true target for the fault displaced offset of the main deposit still lies farther to the east. Drilling of this more easterly target in 2021 will focus along a 600-meter-long gap between the main JT Deposit and NEO, which has, as yet, been subject to little to no testing. This refined offset target is in addition to JT Deposit expansion targets (building on the success of 2020), other Dacite Tuff-hosted targets including the new VMS-style mineralization, and new discovery-focused regional prospect targets, all of which will be drill tested in 2021."
Assays are pending for 10 of the 32 holes HighGold drilled at Johnson Tract during 2020.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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