The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
To include 5,000 meters at Porter Silver, 3,000 at Willoughby North of 60 Mining News – June 18, 2021
A geologist takes a rest at a vantage overlooking Stewart, BC during the 2020 exploration of StrikePoint's Porter project.
Core from the high-grade intercept in W20-106, a hole that cut 7.7 meters averaging 10.04 g/t gold and 5.61 g/t at the Edge zone at StrikePoint's Willoughby property in Northern BC.
StrikePoint Gold Inc. June 16 reported the 2021 exploration programs are now underway at its Porter Silver and Willoughby gold-silver properties east of the mining town of Stewart in British Columbia's prolific Golden Triangle.
"Our 2021 drilling programs are the most aggressive in the company's history," said StrikePoint Gold President and CEO Shawn Khunkhun.
This drilling will begin with an initial 5,000-meter phase of 2021 drilling at Porter, a past-producing silver project overlooking Stewart.
Early 20th-century mining of the high-grade vein systems that run through Mount Rainey produced roughly 2.2 million ounces of silver from 27,123 metric tons of ore averaging 2,542 grams per metric ton silver.
StrikePoint believes the ore mined from Prosperity-Porter Idaho and Silverado, the historic mines on Mount Rainey, could represent opposite ends of a larger mineralized system that extends for 2,350 meters through the mountain. Recent glacial retreat has exposed more of the ground between these past-producing mine sites, making it easier to explore for a connection.
This year's drilling at Porter will target extensions of known veins and test a 2,300-meter-long target between the historic silver mines.
"We have two primary objectives for drilling at the Porter Silver project: 1) step out from high-grade silver mineralization mined in historic stopes at the Prosperity-Porter Idaho and Silverado Mines, and 2) drill the initial holes into the 'Big Flex', targeting the structural intersection of the two prolific vein systems, project to occur under the Silverado ice sheet," said Khunkhun.
Around mid-summer, StrikePoint will mobilize a second rig follow-up on high-grade gold intercepts at Willoughby, which lies about four miles (seven kilometers) east of Ascot Resources Ltd.'s Red Mountain gold-silver mine project.
Two of the six holes StrikePoint drilled at Willoughby last year tested a new area of mineralization known as the Edge zone.
StrikePoint's Edge discovery hole, W20-106, cut 27.8 meters averaging 4.19 g/t gold and 18.3 g/t silver, including a 7.7-meter higher-grade zone averaging 10.04 g/t gold and 5.61 g/t silver. This hole is interpreted to be contiguous with 96-88, a 1994 hole that cut 11.5 meters averaging 7.62 g/t gold and 1.43 g/t silver about 40 meters to the north.
W20-107, the last hole of the 2020 drill program at Willoughby, cut wide intervals of disseminated gold mineralization in the hanging wall to the Edge zone, including 39.5 meters averaging 0.53 g/t gold and 33 meters averaging 0.51 g/t gold.
An initial 3,000-meter program slated for Willoughby this year will follow-up on this discovery; test extensions along strike of the Edge zone mineralization that were during the 2020 surface sampling program; and test the extension of the mineralized horizon to the southeast, with the goal of connecting mineralized zones from recent and historical drill programs as a path to an initial resource estimate at Willoughby.
In addition to drilling, the 2021 field work at Willoughby and Porter will include detailed field mapping and sampling to follow up on high-grade gold and silver mineralization identified during the 2020 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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