The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Three drills to test precious, base metal potential in Alaska North of 60 Mining News – April 16, 2021
White Rock's 2021 drill program at Red Mountain will include shallow holes to test geochemical anomalies identified at the Last Chance gold target at the western end of the property.
The final hole of the 2019 drill program at White Rock's Red Mountain property tapped 1.4 meters averaging 21.6% zinc-equivalent about 200 meters below the resource at Dry Creek.
White Rock Minerals Ltd. April 12 said it plans to carry out 10,000 meters of drilling this year to expand upon and explore the zinc, lead, silver, and gold potential across its 308-square-mile (798 square kilometers) Red Mountain project in Alaska.
This program will involve three drill rigs focused on expanding the silver-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide mineralization already outlined in the Dry Creek and WTF deposits at Red Mountain, as well as the intrusive related gold mineralization recently discovered at the Last Chance prospect.
"One rig will be looking to expand the current silver-rich zinc VMS resource at Dry Creek, one rig will be focusing on follow-up drilling at our large gold anomaly at Last Chance, and the third rig will work variously on some of the yet-to-be-drilled eastern and western VMS prospects we have identified," said White Rock Minerals Managing Director and CEO Matthew Gill.
To help refine targets ahead of the summer drill program, the company has scheduled airborne geophysics at Red Mountain by the end of the month.
Two high-grade VMS deposits at Red Mountain – Dry Creek and WTF – host 9.1 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource averaging 5.8% (1.17 billion pounds) zinc; 2.6% (516 million lb) lead; 0.1% (26.5 million lb) copper; 157 g/t (46.1 million oz) silver; and 0.9 g/t (260,000 oz) gold.
This year's VMS silver-zinc exploration will focus on the potential of expanding the Dry Creek deposit to a size that supports a standalone development opportunity; explore conductivity targets proximal to the Dry Creek and WTF deposits in the eastern half of the Red Mountain property; and investigate new VMS prospects with undrilled outcropping mineralization in the emerging Last Chance VMS camp on the western side of the project.
The Australia-based explorer will also continue drilling the large Last Chance gold target, which lies south of the Last Chance VMS area.
The 2020 reconnaissance drilling at Last Chance Gold hit grades as high as 24.8 g/t gold over 1.2 meters.
Overall, the company says the assay results from the 2020 Last Chance program show a large system of strongly anomalous arsenic and antimony consistent with what has been interpreted to be the upper brittle levels of a large orogenic or intrusion related gold system.
This year's program at Last Chance Gold will include shallow drilling of surface geochemical anomalies and multi-disciplinary targeting of deeper structural positions likely to offer the most favorable environment for high-grade gold mineralization.
"We have in place a 20-person camp in the east of our large 798-square-kilometer land holding, to support the Dry Creek drilling, and we have secured a 30-person camp in the central/west to support our Last Chance and recon activities," said Gill. "It should be an exciting time."
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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