The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Expanded drill program tests Fort Knox-, Pogo-like targets North of 60 Mining News - September 10, 2021
A four-week mapping and prospecting campaign carried out at Tibbs South earlier this year identified exciting drill targets at Jorts and Jeans Ridge prospect areas.
Tectonic Metals Inc. Sept. 7 reported assays as high as 50.5 grams per metric ton gold from rock samples collected from the Jorts prospect at Tibbs South, a property immediately south of Tibbs being leased from Doyon Ltd. The mineralization in the rocks collected from South Tibbs appears to be veining associated with an intrusion-related gold system that strongly resembles the high-grade component of mineralization at Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox gold mine.
Located in the Goodpaster Mining District, Tibbs is best known for its high-grade gold targets reminiscent of the ore at Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo gold mine about 22 miles (35 kilometers) to the northwest. A large deposit of lower grade gold similar to Fort Knox, however, has already been found in the districts – and it is just across the property line from Tibbs South.
This deposit, known as Brink, is on Northern Star's Ink claims immediately west of Tibbs South.
Prior to Northern Star's acquisition of Ink from Stone Boy, a joint venture between subsidiaries of Sumitomo Metal Mining and Sumitomo Corp., drilling had traced the core zone of the Brink deposit on these claims over an area measuring at least 500 meters wide, 1,700 meters long and to a depth of more than 500 meters. One hole drilled by the Stone Boy JV in 2013 cut 514.4 meters averaging 0.43 g/t gold.
Tectonic says the Brink deposit shares the same geochemical and geological signature – elevated arsenic bismuth, tungsten, and gold in sheeted quartz veins cutting granodiorite – as samples collected at Jorts and Jeans Ridge prospect areas. In addition, a more than 4,000-meter-long mineralized trend extends northeast from Brink onto this prospective area at Tibbs South.
Grab rock samples collected this year from a 450-meter-long high-grade anomaly at Jorts contained as much as 50.5 g/t gold, 904 parts per million bismuth, and 8 ppm tungsten. Of the 44 samples collected from Jorts, 11 returned grades topping 20 g/t gold.
Rocks collected from Jeans Ridge, a prospect about 1,250 meters northeast of Jorts, returned grades as high as 7.9 g/t gold, 561 ppm bismuth, and 4 ppm tungsten. Of the 27 samples collected at Jeans, five had more than 1 g/t gold with elevated bismuth and tungsten.
"We are extremely excited by the results of our early-season mapping and sampling program at Tibbs, which exceeded our expectations with 11 of 44 rock samples from Jorts returning over 20 g/t gold, including two samples returning over 50 g/t gold," said Tectonic Metals President and CEO Tony Reda. "These high-grade samples are found within a prominent northeast trend of mineralization beginning 3.7 kilometers to the southwest at Northern Star Resources' Brink prospect and running through Tectonic's ground at Jorts and Jeans."
Based on the exciting new sampling results, Tectonic has decided to defer its planned 2021 drilling at the Seventymile Gold Project until next season to focus its time, energy, and capital on the newly identified high-grade gold targets at Tibbs.
As such, the company has mobilized a reverse circulation rig to carry out up to 3,700 meters of drilling in addition to the directional core drilling that has been testing Pogo-style gold targets since July.
The RC rig is slated to complete roughly 1,200 meters of drilling at the Jorts and Jeans targets and then test Pogo-like low-angle structures in the western portion of Tibbs with approximately 2,500 meters of drilling.
Further details of the Pogo-style mineralization identified with geophysics and structural analysis in western Tibbs can be read at Tectonic drilling Pogo like target at Tibbs in the August 20, 2021 edition of North of 60 Mining News.
"With the mobilization of an RC rig to site, Tectonic is drill testing these new anomalies now, along with the newly identified low-angle structures observed in our phase 1 diamond drilling, acting decisively and aggressively to advance our exploration targets," Reda said.
Tectonic plans to extend its 2021 field season at Tibbs into October.
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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