The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drill taps 8 meters of 21 g/t gold in new vein system at Gnu North of 60 Mining News – September 3, 2021
Blue Star has completed 14 holes so far this year on its Ulu-Hood River gold project in Nunavut.
Blue Star Gold Corp. Sept. 1 announced that drilling has tapped strong gold mineralization at the Gnu target on its Ulu project in Nunavut.
The Ulu property hosts an advanced gold project that has historically been the target of significant exploration and development by BHP Minerals, Echo Bay Mines, and others. The past work includes roughly 97,820 meters of drilling and 1,700 meters of underground development.
According to a 2015 calculation, the Flood and Gnu zones on the Ulu property host 2.5 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 7.53 grams per metric ton (605,000 ounces) gold; and 1.26 million metric tons of inferred resource grading 5.57 g/t (226,000 oz) gold.
The larger Hood River property hosts 22 known gold occurrences and is prospective for shear-hosted gold mineralization similar to the Flood zone, which hosts the bulk of the resource on the adjacent Ulu property.
The 2021 exploration campaign is evaluating several priority targets in the area of the Flood zone gold deposit, as well as high potential targets along the Ulu fold hinge that extends roughly 5,000 meters north to the North Fold Nose (NFN) zone on the adjacent Hood River property.
Objectives of this year's program include better understanding the controls of higher-grade zones within the structures, evaluating additional structures on and adjacent to the Ulu fold hinge, and expanding and infilling previously known mineralized zones that have had only limited drilling.
With two drills turning, Blue Star has completed roughly 3,000 meters of diamond drilling in 14 holes in the adjacent Flood, Central, and Gnu zones since late July.
"The exploration campaign is progressing exceptionally well given some early start-up hurdles," said Blue Star Gold Vice President of Exploration Darren Lindsay.
Though the company has only received partial assays from one hole drilled in the Gnu area of the Ulu property, the results are impressive.
Hole 21BSG007 cut 8.15 meters averaging 20.8 g/t gold from a depth of 162.1 meters. Blue Star says this intercept represents a new vein system.
The majority of assays for 21BSG007 are still pending, but the company reports that visible gold was observed in core while logging.
Hole 21BSG007 is a follow-up to 21BSG005, which cut the expected arsenopyrite mineralization over approximately two meters at a depth of roughly two meters.
Given the success in this area, Blue Star plans to focus much of its remaining 2021 drilling at Gnu.
"Drilling is systematically evaluating our targets, however, the drill program remains very adaptive to the rocks we see coming from each target test. As a result, some meterage will be re-allocated to follow up on the excellent results from 21BSG007 as subsequent field work has confirmed this as a significant new target in the Gnu zone and could be the team's first new discovery on the Blue Star projects," said Lindsay.
Drilling has recently commenced at NFN zone, which was a focus of previous programs. Additionally, maiden surface exploration was carried out on select targets at Roma, a separate project about 22 miles (35 kilometers) north of Ulu, after the completion of a detailed heliborne magnetometry geophysical survey flown over a portion of the property earlier this year.
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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