The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drills high-grade silver at advanced Formo resource target North of 60 Mining News – April 9, 2021
Metallic Minerals completed 12 holes during the 2020 program at its West Keno silver project in the Yukon.
Metallic Minerals Corp. April 7 reported that its 2020 drill program at West Keno confirmed the presence of high-grade silver mineralization at advanced targets on this property along extensions of structural corridors being mined on Alexco Resources Corp.'s adjacent Keno Hill project in the Yukon.
Metallic Minerals completed 2,674 meters of drilling in 12 holes during its 2020 program at West Keno. This included 11 holes at Formo, a top priority target for near-term resource definition.
Formo is situated at the intersection of a northeasterly structural zone extending from the Hector-Calumet mine, which historically produced nearly 100 million ounces of silver, and the Elsa structural trend, the second largest silver producer in the Keno Hill Silver District. A historical mine at Formo that produced silver at various times since the 1930s from high-grade vein structures that are reported to have averaged 5,092 grams per metric ton silver. Most of this silver was mined from an open pit located between the Elsa townsite and Keno City.
Metallic's 2020 program hit high-grade silver, zinc, and lead at Formo. Highlights from this drilling include:
• 6.1 meters averaging 369 g/t silver, 0.11% lead, and 1.52% zinc from a depth of 50.9 meters in hole FOR-20-001.
• 4.1 meters averaging 1,568 g/t silver, 29.45% lead, and 15.35% zinc from a depth of 96 meters in FOR-20-003.
• 6.1 meters averaging 601 g/t silver, 7.33% lead, and 4.25% zinc from a depth of 89.8 meters in FOR-20-004.
• 2.1 meters averaging 1,001 g/t silver, 8.92% lead, and 18.92% zinc from 137.6 meters in FOR-20-006.
The remaining hole tested Silver Queen, which is adjacent to the Silver King, a deposit area on Alexco's Keno Hill property historically produced 11 million oz of silver at an average grade of 1,800 g/t silver. According to a historical resource calculation, six vein structures at Silver King host 5.3 million additional oz of silver at an average grade of 1,373 g/t silver.
Metallic's 2020 hole at Silver Queen cut 300 meters of the stratigraphy that hosts the Bermingham and Silver King deposits on Alexco's property, successfully confirming the presence of this prospective unit at moderate to shallow depths.
"We are very pleased with the success we have achieved in both phases of our 2020 Keno Silver project exploration program," said Metallic Minerals Chairman and CEO Greg Johnson. "At our advanced-stage Formo target in the West Keno area, 10 of 11 diamond drill holes intercepted significant mineralization, further confirming the presence of high-grade Keno-style mineralization that remains open to expansion. We are particularly encouraged to see these very high-grade intercepts over significant widths at Formo and follow-up diamond drilling along these identified structures will be a priority in 2021, along with testing of several newly identified, kilometer-scale geophysical and geochemical targets at West Keno."
Metallic's recent drilling has been integrated with surface sampling and geophysics to develop a 3D geologic model that will aid follow-up exploration targeting the projected down-dip extensions of the high-grade Silver King structures and potential extensions of the western Bermingham system. Both structural corridors represent significant near-term exploration targets at Silver Queen with follow-up work planned in 2021.
Metallic also engaged GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. last year to apply its proprietary machine learning technology and geoscience expertise to help refine drill targets at its Keno Silver project.
Further details of the Metallic and GoldSpot collaboration can be read at GoldSpot AI explores Yukon's Keno Hill in the October 14, 2020 edition of Metal Tech News – https://www.metaltechnews.com/story/2020/10/14/mining-tech/goldspot-ai-explores-yukons-keno-hill/358.html.
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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