The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Will explore new targets, collect metallurgical test samples North of 60 Mining News – June 25, 2021
Core from historical drilling of the copper-rich lenses of volcanic sediment-hosted mineralization at Caribou Dome.
PolarX Ltd. June 22 announced plans to complete at least 1,500 meters of core drilling this year at Caribou Dome, a high-grade copper project on its Alaska Range property.
Discovered in 1963, Caribou Dome hosts 2.8 million metric tons of combined measured, indicated, and inferred resources averaging 3.1% (189.6 million pounds) copper in nine lenses of volcanic sediment-hosted mineralization.
PolarX says historical exploration revealed these lenses show strong copper anomalism in surface soil sample assays, and can also be broadly mapped and precited with induced polarization geophysical surveys that show the lenses as chargeability highs.
After a thorough review of geochemical and IP data, PolarX says it has prioritized three new undrilled targets to test this year.
All of these targets are less than 500 meters from known mineralization and have the potential to host one or more lenses of massive sulfide copper mineralization.
In addition to the exploration drilling, PolarX plans to drill four holes into the known high-grade massive sulfide lenses to provide fresh samples for metallurgical testing to assess the potential of processing ore from Caribou Dome in combination with ore mined from a future mine at the high-grade Zackly copper-gold project about 15 miles to the northeast.
Earlier this year, PolarX announced plans to initiate a scoping study that will evaluate an operation that includes Zackly Main, Zackly East, and the Caribou Dome deposits.
Based on drilling by PolarX and previous explorers, Zackly Main hosts 3.4 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource averaging 1.2% (90.4 million lb) copper, 2 grams per metric ton (213,000 oz) gold, and 14 g/t (1.5 million oz) silver.
Zackly East, a robust skarn discovery about 850 meters east of Zackly Main, has the potential to expand upon this resource. Highlights from drilling at Zackly East include:
• 54.6 meters averaging 2.8 g/t gold and 0.6% copper in hole ZX‐18020.
• 46.7 meters averaging 3.1 g/t gold and 0.6% copper in ZX‐18024.
• 11.6 meters averaging 1.86 g/t gold and 0.38% copper in ZX20035.
• 68.6 meters averaging 0.6 g/t gold and 0.3% copper in ZX20040.
A further 3,000 meters of drilling at Zackly East is scheduled to begin in July. This summer's program is also expected to further test Zackly Main at depth and toward Zackly East.
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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