The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
New record intercept of 1.7 meters at 588 g/t gold drilled North of 60 Mining News – April 12, 2021
Even when temperatures dip to 40 degrees below zero, drills continue to test the high-grade and bulk tonnage gold targets at Golden Summit, thanks in large part to the project's highway access about 25 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.
While earlier bonanza grade gold from the 2020 drill program at Freegold Ventures Ltd.'s Golden Summit property in Alaska was impressive, one drill intercept in the latest batch of results returned by far the highest grade gold intercept drilled by the company so far.
This hole, GS2017, cut 1.7 meters averaging a staggering 588 grams per metric ton (18.9 ounces per metric ton) gold. This was part of a 219.8-meter intercept that averaged 1.61 g/t gold. This longer intercept did not include the full value of the 1.7-meter bonanza grade section. Instead, the 588 g/t gold was cut to a mere 88 g/t gold for the purpose of calculating a weighted average to prevent the 14.9 oz/t intercept from overly influencing the wider results.
Hole GS2017 was drilled roughly 520 meters northeast of GSDL2001, a hole that cut 188 meters averaging 3.69 g/t gold, including a two-meter intercept averaging 169.5 g/t (4.9 ounces per metric ton) gold.
Before the start of the 2020 program, most of the drilling at Golden Summit focused on Dolphin, a deposit that hosts 61.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.69 g/t ton (1.36 million ounces) gold; and 71.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.69 g/t (1.58 million oz) gold.
With grades reminiscent of the ore feeding the mill and heap leach facility at Kinross Gold Corp.'s neighboring Fort Knox Mine, this deposit holds promise for future bulk tonnage mining.
Freegold's 2020 program, however, focused on testing its theory that higher grade gold mineralization extends west from the historic Cleary Hill Mine, which produced 281,000 ounces of gold from ore averaging 1.3 oz per ton before the operation was shuttered during World War II.
Since GSDL2001, the first hole of the 2020 season, Freegold has continued to tap high-grade gold zones within wider bulk tonnage zones. Highlights from previously released results include:
• GSDL2005, drilled about 100 meters north of GSDL2001, cut 573 meters averaging 1.21 g/t gold, including three meters averaging 131.5 g/t (4.2 oz/t) gold at the bottom of the hole.
• GSDL2007, drilled about 125 meters southwest of GSDL2001, cut 348 meters averaging 1 g/t gold, including 90 meters averaging 1.55 g/t gold.
• GSDL2008, drilled about 400 meters northeast of GSDL2001, cut 231.5 meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold, including 57.3 meters averaging 2.07 g/t gold.
• GSDL2009, drilled about 325 meters northeast of GSDL2001, cut 280.6 meters averaging 1.35 g/t gold, including 3.1 meters averaging 55.6 g/t gold.
• GSDL2010, drilled about 75 meters southwest of GSDL2001, cut 209 meters averaging 1.16 g/t gold, including three meters averaging 31 g/t gold.
These results appear to show a link between the high-grade Cleary Hill vein system and the Dolphin deposit.
All five holes included in the latest batch of results hit significant gold mineralization:
• GSDL2011, drilled about 100 meters north of GSDL2001, cut 100 meters averaging 0.97 g/t gold from 278 meters, and 157.6 meters of 1.34 g/t gold from 404.2 meters.
• GS2014, drilled roughly 440 meters west of GSDL2001, cut 90 meters averaging 1.8 g/t gold.
• GS2015, drilled roughly 140 meters northeast of GSDL2001, cut 362 meters averaging 1.13 g/t from a depth of 162 meters, including 1.5 meters of 86.4 g/t gold.
• GS2016, drilled roughly 175 meters northeast of GSDL2001, cut 312.6 meters averaging 0.95 g/t from 167 meters, including 203 meters of 1.03 g/t gold.
• GS2017 not only returned the highest grade intercept at Cleary Hill but also a significant width of 98.2 meters grading 3.07 g/t gold.
Assays from three holes drilled last year remain pending.
As the last of the 2020 holes trickle in, Freegold is already roughly 8,000 meters into a 40,000-meter drill program slated for Golden Summit during 2021.
This year's drilling continues to focus on determining the orientation of the higher-grade gold zones theorized by Freegold and encountered during the 2020 season. This drilling is particularly focused on areas to the north, east and west of the Dolphin intrusive.
In addition, drilling will target areas south of the Cleary Hill mine workings, including the Colorado, Wackwitz and Wyoming vein zones which have never been tested to depth or along strike to the east. Past drilling in the Cleary Hill area has been largely shallow in nature and it is interpreted that the Dolphin intrusive likely underlies the Cleary Hill area at depth.
Overall, the program aims to expand and upgrade the current Golden Summit resource, as well as carrying out environmental baseline studies, metallurgical work, and cultural studies needed to advance the project to the pre-feasibility stage.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the position of hole GS017 in relation to GSDL2001. Hole GS2017 was drilled roughly 520 meters northeast of GSDL2001.
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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