The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Tectonic receives assays from initial phase of 2021 program North of 60 Mining News – October 29, 2021
Completed in June, this second hole of the initial phase of 2021 drilling at Tibbs cut three mineralized intercepts in the Michigan zone, including five meters averaging 1.81 g/t gold.
Visible gold along the margin of a massive quartz-stibnite vein encountered in hole TBDD21-001, drilled at Michigan.
Tectonic Metals Inc. Oct. 25 reported that its first-ever oriented core drill program at Tibbs cut high-grade gold at Gray Lead and Michigan, the two zones targeted during the initial phase of 2021 drilling on the property about 22 miles (35 kilometers) southeast of Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s high-grade Pogo gold mine.
"Our phase I diamond drilling program at Tibbs targeted some of the highest tenor gold anomalies in the Goodpaster Mining District of Alaska, obtaining the first-ever oriented drill core from Tibbs and successfully intersecting multiple intervals of visible gold in quartz veining at Michigan as well as Pogo-style quartz veining at Gray Lead," said Tectonic Metals President and CEO Tony Reda.
This initial phase of the 2021 program at Tibbs involved 803 meters of drilling in seven holes, three at Michigan and four at Gray Lead.
Michigan is a broad, northeast-trending structural corridor first drilled by Tectonic with a hole that cut 29 meters averaging 6.03 grams per metric ton gold.
Highlights from 11 rotary air blast holes drilled at Michigan in 2020 include 9.1 meters averaging 6.71 g/t gold, 12.9 meters averaging 2.61 g/t gold, and 7.6 meters averaging 3.73 g/t gold.
This year's oriented core drilling at Michigan included two holes to test the heart of the Michigan structure, and a third hole tested a geophysical anomaly about 115 meters west of the core of the Michigan trend.
The best intercept from this drilling came in the first hole, TBDD21-001, which cut 6.12 meters averaging 7.69 g/t gold from a depth of 78 meters.
Hole TBDD21-002 cut three mineralized intercepts, including five meters averaging 1.81 g/t gold from a depth of 131 meters.
Tectonic says the Michigan zone, which has been traced for 275 meters along strike and to a depth of 250 meters, is open in all directions.
The company also reports strong gold mineralization was encountered in three of the four phase I holes drilled at Gray Lead, a high-grade vertical vein where historical drilling cut 5.7 meters of 19.14 g/t gold, 5.3 meters of 15.76 g/t gold, and 4.26 meters of 6.13 g/t.
The oriented core drilling completed during the initial phase of 2021 drilling at Gray Lead consisted of infill holes focused on validating the historic results and determining the structural controls, plunge, and dip of the high-grade core of the Pogo-style Gray Lead vein for future expansion drilling.
Highlights from the phase I 2021 Gray Lead drilling include 6.89 meters averaging 5.67 g/t gold from a depth of 21 meters in hole TBDD21-006 and 5.15 meters averaging 5.15 g/t gold from a depth of 19.23 meters in TBDD21-007.
Hole TBDD21-005 cut 2.36 meters of 5.88 g/t gold, but a 1.83-meter void encountered immediately above this intercept indicates that some of the Gray Lead vein was historically mined out at this location.
The phase I drilling at Gray Lead also provided information on the host stratigraphy for application in the second phase of 2021 exploratory drilling targeting Pogo-like low-angle vein 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.
To further refine these targets, Tectonic had four 4,000-meter-long lines of Titan geophysical survey completed that extend from the intrusive rocks that host known high-grade gold zones at Tibbs into the gneiss rocks believed to host Pogo-like veins. This survey identified several targets for drilling – West Trench, Johnson Saddle, Galosh, and Gray Lead West.
This survey, coupled with the geological knowledge gained from the phase I program, helped target the 23 holes – five core and 18 reverse circulation – completed during the second phase of 2021 drilling at Tibbs.
"We now eagerly await our phase II drill results, the bulk of our exploration program, which predominantly tested new gold-in-soil and rock anomalies that have high potential for discovery," Reda said.
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.
Reader Comments(0)