The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Program aims to show expansiveness of namesake district North of 60 Mining News – August 6, 2021
White Gold recently completed an eight-hole diamond drill program testing for extensions of the high-grade gold mineralization cut during 2020 drilling at the Ryan's Surprise target on the company's namesake project in the Yukon.
From its first-ever diamond drill program on the Betty property in the vicinity of Western Copper and Gold Corp.'s Casino copper-gold project in the Dawson Range to testing a potential hardrock source of the rich placer streams in the Sixtymile district near the Alaska border, White Gold Corp. is in the midst of an expansive exploration program across its more than 1 million acres of prospective land in Yukon's prolific White Gold District.
"We are anticipating an exciting season in 2021 with our field programs well underway," said White Gold Vice President of Exploration Terry Brace. "We have diamond drilling programs planned on several projects, including the Ryan's Surprise where we encountered multiple high-grade gold intercepts last year, as well as targets on the Betty and Nolan properties, which will be the first-ever diamond drilling on those properties. Rotary air blast drilling is also planned on several high-priority targets on the White Gold and Bonanza properties."
White Gold's 2021 program is fully funded and backed by strategic partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp., each owning roughly a 17% interest in the Yukon-focused exploration company.
"We are very grateful for the continued support of our major shareholders and the other participants in this financing," White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio said upon the July 29 closing of a C$4.1 million financing that both Agnico and Kinross participated in. "Our 2021 field season is now well underway, focused on highly anticipated new targets, recent discoveries, and our existing mineral resources as we seek to further demonstrate the expansiveness of gold mineralization in the White Gold District, and the effectiveness of our exploration methodologies."
White Gold property
Ryan's Surprise is one of several exploration targets found on White Gold's namesake property at the heart of the famed gold district with the same name.
The Golden Saddle and Arc deposits on the White Gold property host 15.6 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.28 grams per metric ton (1.14 million oz) gold; and 9 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.39 g/t (402,100 oz) gold.
Situated bout 2,000 meters west of Golden Saddle, the Ryan's Surprise discovery lies at the center of a roughly 6,500-meter-long gold mineralized trend running alongside the Yukon River that also encompasses Ulli's Ridge, Teachers Showing, Minneapolis Creek, and other prospects.
Highlights from previous drilling at the Ryan's Surprise anomaly include 6.6 meters averaging 6.33 g/t gold in a hole drilled in 2011; 6.1 meters of 20.64 g/t gold in 2018; 13.2 meters of 5.02 g/t gold in 2018; and 21 meters of 2.07 g/t gold in 2019; and 3.8 meters averaging 10.96 g/t gold and 12.3 meters averaging 8.69 g/t gold in 2020.
White Gold recently completed an eight-hole diamond drill program testing for western strike and down-dip extensions of the high-grade mineralization last year at Ryan's Surprise, as well as anomalous gold identified during the 2020 GT probe in the northernmost portion of the adjacent Ulli's Ridge target.
In addition to the diamond drilling, White Gold plans to drill approximately 10 rotary air blast holes to test shallow targets at Ulli's Ridge and Minneapolis Creek.
Assays are pending from the 2020 drilling at White Gold.
Drilling two Betty targets
Following the drilling at Ryan's Surprise, White Gold began its first-ever diamond drill program at Betty, 17,127-hectare (42,322 acres) property covers the eastern strike extension of the Coffee Creek Fault that exerts structural controls on Newmont Corp's Coffee Gold deposit, which lies about 40 kilometers (25 miles) to the west.
The 2020 exploration program at Betty included ground magnetic and very-low-frequency electromagnetic (VLF-EM) geophysical surveys and infill soil geochemistry sampling at six areas on the property. This includes further work to help define targets for the 10 to 12 holes planned to be drilled this year at the Betty White and Betty Ford areas of the property.
Betty White covers a more than 800-meter-long gold-arsenic-antimony soil anomaly across a north-facing hillside above Sunshine Creek. Roughly 400 meters of this trend has been partially outlined with GT Probe sampling and limited rotary air blast (RAB) drilling.
Highlights from White Gold's 2018 RAB drilling at Betty White include 22.86 meters averaging 0.47 grams per metric ton gold in hole BETWHTRAB-019 and 4.57 meters averaging 1.8 g/t gold in BETWHTRAB-021.
Situated about 700 meters south of Betty White, the Betty Ford zone covers a 300- by 200-meter gold-in-soil anomaly. White Gold encountered near-surface mineralization at Betty Ford with 2018 RAB drilling, including 24.39 meters averaging 0.94 g/t gold in BETFRDRAB-001 and 50.29 meters averaging 1.08 g/t gold in BETFRDRAB-002.
This year's drilling will test a roughly 500-meter-long area that encompasses hole BETFRDRAB-002.
Exploring Nolan
White Gold is also planning to carry out diamond drilling on its Nolan property in the Sixtymile district, an area between Dawson City and the Alaska border that has produced more than 500,000 ounces of placer gold and counting.
This year's program at Nolan is slated to include around 1,200 meters of diamond drilling in four holes at Cali, a 2,500-meter-long multi-element soil anomaly, where sampling has returned grades as high as 515 parts per billion gold, 1,436 parts per million arsenic, 2,184 ppm copper, 2,670 ppm zinc, and 1,225 ppm lead.
Widely spaced drill holes are planned to test an approximately 1,000-meter-long segment of this soil anomaly on the south side of the Sixtymile-Pika Fault, an important structure that controls porphyry, epithermal, and skarn mineralization in this part of the Yukon and into eastern Alaska.
In addition to the first-ever diamond drilling, this year's program at Nolan will include geological mapping, induced polarization geophysical surveys, and GT probe sampling focused on advancing two porphyry-style copper-gold-molybdenum targets – Boucher and Mount Hart – to the drill-ready stage.
Advancing Bonanza targets
White Gold will also be advancing several regional targets toward the drill-ready stage, including the Bonanza property in the heart of Yukon's legendary Klondike district.
Located about 10 kilometers (six miles) south of Dawson City, the Bonanza property lies alongside the famed Bonanza Creek.
Infill soil geochemistry sampling carried out last year located multiple large gold-in-soil anomalies. A new structural geological interpretation based on airborne magnetic and electromagnetic geophysics, as well as high-resolution drone lidar data, indicates that the soil anomalies are coincident with fault structures. The 6,000-meter combined strike length of the soil anomalies and interpreted controlling structures remains untested by trenching or drilling.
Existing targets on the Bonanza property will be refined and evaluated in 2021 through a systematic program of geological and structural mapping, GT Probe sampling, high-resolution IP and resistivity geophysical surveys, followed by three or four RAB holes later in the season.
The 2021 regional exploration program will also focus on a number of additional properties in White Gold Corp's portfolio.
Planned work includes geologic mapping and prospecting, detailed structural interpretations, soil sampling, GT probe sampling, lidar surveys, and ground geophysics designed to identify and advance targets in White Gold's continually expanding exploration pipeline.
"The work programs are progressing well, with further detail and updates to be reported in due course," said Brace.
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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