The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Geophysics to help refine drill targets in underexplored west North of 60 Mining News – July 23, 2021
The Titan geophysical survey will span known gold targets in intrusive rocks at Tibbs, such as the Michigan zone being tested with this hole earlier this year, and new Pogo-like targets in gneiss rocks toward the west side of the project.
Tectonic Metals Inc. July 20 announced it is entering the second phase of its 2021 exploration program at Tibbs in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District with a deep-penetrating Titan-160 ground-based geophysical survey targeting gold-in-soil anomalies in an area prospective for flat-lying gold veins similar to those that have provided the bulk of the ore Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo gold mine about 22 miles (35 kilometers) to the northwest.
"Tectonic's innovative approach to mineral exploration is once again reflected in our decision to conduct a deep searching Titan survey at Tibbs," said Tectonic Metals President and CEO Tony Reda. "For the first time in the history of this property, a non-airborne geophysical survey will fully transect the prospective host rocks and structural corridor, which controls gold mineralization."
Titan is a unique geophysical system that includes DC resistivity-induced polarization data to a depth of 750 meters and collects magnetotelluric data to depths of 1,500 meters and greater.
Previous field observations and structural analysis undertaken by Tectonic suggests the presence of low-angle extensional structures and shears within gneissic rocks in the underexplored western part of the Tibbs property. Tectonic says this structural and geological setting is similar to that found at the Liese zone at the Pogo gold mine, where low-angle reactivated shear structures host gold mineralization in quartz-sulfide veins.
Mapping carried out in this area during the 2020 season identified low-angle faults within moderately dipping gneissic rocks, which are key characteristics of the Pogo geological model.
Soil sampling at five grids over gneissic rocks west of the Wolverine zone in the north and the Gray Lead zone in the south identified multiple gold-in-soil anomalies with the exact same geochemistry as mineralization observed at Pogo, including a 2,500-meter-long gold-arsenic anomaly about 500 meters northwest of Gray Lead, where past drilling has tapped high-grade gold in steeply dipping veins.
"Interestingly, limited historical ground geophysical surveys were restricted to the intrusive rocks, while gneissic rocks in the west of the property, which are similar to those which host the mineralization at the nearby Pogo Gold Mine, were untested," said Reda.
To resolve this, the Titan survey will involve four 4,000-meter-long geophysical lines that extend from the intrusive rocks that host Michigan, Grey Lead, and other known high-grade gold into the gneiss rocks believed to host Pogo-like veins. Spaced 1,000 meters apart, these surveys will provide geophysical data over a large prospective area of Tibbs.
"Extending our Titan lines across the entire rock package and structural corridor at Tibbs will assist us in drill testing this season for possible low-angle shears or structures within the gneissic rocks, a target potentially analogous to the Liese veins at Pogo," Reda added.
Targets generated by the survey will be tested during the second phase of 2021 drilling at Tibbs.
The first phase of this program focused on validating and expanding upon known high-grade gold exploration targets such as Michigan, where 2020 drilling hit grades as high as 6.71 grams per metric ton gold over 9.1 meters, as well as test newly identified structural and soil geochemical targets within the intrusive rocks at Tibbs.
Assays from all the holes from the initial phase of 2021 drilling at Tibbs are pending.
Further details of Tectonic's 2021 exploration at Tibbs and the Seventymile gold project can be read at Tectonic excited to find gold in Alaska in the June 11, 2021 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
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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