The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Seeking critical mass at JT, testing wider potential in 2021 North of 60 Mining News – May 7, 2021
Three drills previously delivered to Johnson Tract are already on the property and ready to complete the initial 16,000-meter drill program slated for the Alaska project this year.
HighGold Mining's 2020 geological team identified several new gold, silver, and base metals prospects that will be followed up with further exploration and drilling this year.
HighGold Mining Inc. May 6 outlined plans for an initial US$8.2 million (C$10 million) 2021 exploration program at its Johnson Tract polymetallic gold project in Southcentral Alaska that will test expansion targets at and around its JT deposit, and explore other earlier staged prospects across the 20,942-acre (8,475 hectares) property.
"Our exploration team's mandate in 2021 includes both establishing critical mass at the JT deposit and making new discoveries," said HighGold Mining President and CEO Darwin Green.
According to a calculation completed in April of 2020, 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.
Since this resource was calculated, the HighGold team completed 32 holes to expand this deposit and test other targets in the immediate area.
Highlights from previously reported drill intercepts on the margins of the JT deposit mineral resource area include:
• 74.1 meters averaging 17.89 g/t gold, 7.1 g/t silver, 0.48% copper, 7.28% zinc, and 1.31% lead in hole JT20-092.
• 75.1 meters averaging 10.01 g/t gold, 6 g/t silver, 0.57% copper, 9.36% zinc, and 1.11% lead in JT20-093.
• 20.1 meters averaging 11.5 g/t gold, 4 g/t silver, 0.5% copper, and 3.1% zinc in JT20-096.
Roughly two-thirds, or nearly 11,000 meters of the initial 2021 program will focus on upgrading and expanding the resource at JT deposit.
"The JT Deposit is open to expansion and a priority for this program is to continue tracking and expanding the deposit farther down-plunge," said Green.
The balance of the drilling will test some of the earlier staged targets identified across the wider property.
This included drilling at DC (Dry Creek), a prospect about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) northeast of the JT deposit.
Surface exploration carried out during the 2020 season led to the discovery of a high-grade silver-gold-zinc vein field covering a 250- by 700-meter area south of the historical gold showing at DC.
Two historic holes drilled at Dry Creek indicate the potential of this target.
• DC-001, cut three meters of 7.54 g/t gold, 3.72% zinc, 0.11% copper, 1.15% lead, and 27.4 g/t silver.
• DC-002 cut 13 meters of 8.57 g/t gold, 4.7% zinc, 0.5% copper, 0.9% lead, and 37.7 g/t silver.
Surface exploration carried out during the 2020 season led to the discovery of a high-grade silver-gold-zinc vein field covering a 250- by 700-meter area south of the historical gold showing at DC.
Highlighted assays from the rock samples collected from this area include:
• 1,800 g/t silver, 0.4 g/t gold, and 0.5% zinc.
• 1,280 g/t silver, 1.9 g/t gold, and 0.9% zinc.
• 517 g/t silver, 1.1 g/t gold, and 2.8% zinc.
The 2020 exploration field program also significantly expanded a gold-in-soil anomaly defined by HighGold during 2019, including delineation of a new 320-meter-long sub-parallel gold-in-soil anomaly.
At the northern end of the DC prospect and at lower elevation, sampling also identified an area of high-grade copper mineralization. Rock samples from this area returned grades as high as 9.87% and 3.98% copper.
"We have high conviction in the potential to define a multi-deposit district at Johnson Tract and are excited to be drill testing several of the priority regional prospects for the first time ever," said Green.
To help refine targets for this drilling, the HighGold exploration team will carry out further geological mapping, prospecting, and sampling programs to follow up and expand on the positive results generated last year.
The company also plans to carry out detailed induced polarization (IP) ground geophysical surveys over several Johnson District regional prospects to detect prospective mineralized trends.
The 2021 program is slated to get started toward the end of May with roughly 1,100 line-kilometers (684 miles) of airborne IP geophysics to identify major fault structures and prospective areas of subsurface mineralization
Three drill rigs were secured on site at the end of the 2020 field season and are scheduled to be up and running in early June.
Initially, all three drill rigs will be testing targets in the immediate JT deposit area. Testing of regional prospects is expected to get underway in July, with at least one drill rig dedicated to testing new targets for the remainder of the program.
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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