The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
1.4 meters of 35% zinc cut 200 meters down dip of resource North of 60 Mining News – October 1, 2021
DC21-97, the first hole drilled this year at Red Mountain, cut 1.4 meters averaging 35% zinc, 12.2% lead, 237 g/t silver, 2.9 g/t gold, and 0.3% copper at the Dry Creek deposit.
White Rock Minerals Ltd. Sept. 28 reported that drilling has tapped spectacular zinc grades well outside the resource at Dry Creek, indicating the potential for a substantial expansion of this polymetallic volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit on the company's 323-square-mile (836 square kilometers) Red Mountain project in Alaska.
Dry Creek and the nearby WTF deposits near the eastern end of the Red Mountain property host 9.1 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource averaging 5.8% (1.17 billion pounds) zinc; 2.6% (516 million lb) lead; 0.1% (26.5 million lb) copper; 157 g/t (46.1 million oz) silver; and 0.9 g/t (260,000 oz) gold.
This year's drilling at Dry Creek tested the down-dip expansion potential of the resource with 200-meter spaced holes along a 1,000-meter stretch of the deposit.
The first assay results from this drilling are from hole DC21-97, which tested the down-dip projection of the Fosters lens toward the western end of the deposit.
From a depth of 487.1 meters, hole DC21-97 cut 5.8 meters averaging 11.5% zinc, 3.4% lead, 69 g/t silver, 0.8 g/t gold, and 0.1% copper. This zone of VMS mineralization included a 1.4-meter interval averaging 35% zinc, 12.2% lead, 237 g/t silver, 2.9 g/t gold, and 0.3% copper. This equates to 55.3% zinc if you calculate the zinc value of all the metals intercepted.
"I think this drill hole's assays speak for themselves," said White Rock Minerals CEO Matt Gill.
What is equally exciting to White Rock is the hole DC21-97 intercept is more than 200 meters down-dip from the nearest intersection in hole DC18-773, which cut 4.3 meters averaging 4.8% zinc, 2.3% lead, 1,435 g/t silver, 2.2 g/t gold and 0.5% copper, or 43.2% zinc-equivalent. The new intercept doubles the known depth of the resource in this area of the deposit.
Assays are pending from three additional holes drilled at Dry Creek on roughly 200-meter step-outs along strike from DC21-97.
White Rock says the fourth drill hole (DC21-103) successfully intersected both the Fosters and Discovery sulfide horizons over 200 meters down dip of previous drilling. A 5.5-meter-thick interval of laminated sulfides dominated by pyrite (iron mineral), with lesser sphalerite (zinc mineral), and rare chalcopyrite (copper mineral) and galena (lead mineral) was intersected on the Fosters horizon.
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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