The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Affirms idea of higher-grade zones within Dolphin deposit North of 60 Mining News – November 5, 2021
The northern lights illuminate the sky over Golden Summit, an advanced gold exploration project immediately north of Kinross Gold's Fort Knox Mine property in Alaska.
Freegold Ventures Ltd. Nov. 3 reported that its ongoing 40,000-meter resource upgrade and drill program at Golden Summit cut broad zones of much higher-than-resource-grade gold mineralization at and around the Dolphin deposit, along with narrow high-grade gold intercepts.
Located about 25 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska, and adjacent to Kinross Gold Corp.'s Fort Knox Mine, Golden Summit hosts 61.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.69 grams per metric ton (1.36 million ounces) gold; and 71.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.69 g/t (1.58 million oz) gold.
During 2020, Freegold began tracing very high-grade gold mineralization from the historic Cleary Hill Mine – which produced 281,000 oz of gold from ore averaging 1.3 oz per ton before the operation was shuttered during World War II – westward toward the Dolphin deposit.
This year's drilling is focused on determining the orientation and extent of higher-grade mineralization in and around the Dolphin deposit and eastward into the Cleary Hill Mine area.
The latest batch of results is from two holes drilled at Dolphin and one at Cleary Hill.
The best intercept from this batch of assays came in hole GS2107, which cut 231.2 meters averaging 1.22 g/t gold from a depth of 340.6 meters, including 2.1 meters averaging 44 g/t gold from 521.1 meters.
This hole was drilled toward the eastern margins of the Dolphin deposit between GS2103, which cut 267 meters averaging 0.73 g/t gold from a depth of 536.4 meters, and GS2003, which cut 146.1 meters averaging 0.8 g/t gold from a depth of 306 meters.
These results continue to confirm Freegold's re-interpretation of potentially higher-grade zone within the existing resource.
Hole GS2111, also drilled in the Dophin deposit area about 270 meters west of GS2107 and on the north side of the Tolovana Vein zone, cut 106.7 meters averaging 0.97 g/t gold from a depth of 434.9 meters. This hole was still in gold mineralization when it was terminated at 541.6 meters due to difficult drilling conditions.
GS2127, drilled from the southern margins of the currently outlined Cleary Hill Mine area, cut two high-grade gold intervals – 2.2 meters averaging 30.39 g/t gold from a depth of 155.3 meters and three meters averaging 36.8 g/t gold from a depth of 232.4 meters.
Freegold says these intercepts may correlate with the Wyoming and Wackwitz veins that are south of the Cleary Hill Mine workings. In addition to the high-grade intercepts, GS2127 cut 99.6 meters averaging 0.74 g/t gold from a depth of 382.4 meters, which is the projected down dip extension of the Cleary Vein system.
Additional holes to the south of the Cleary Vein system are planned to potentially extend the down dip of the Cleary Hill vein system.
Results from this year's 40,000-meter drill program, along with more than 10,000 meters of drilling completed in 2017 and 2020, will be incorporated in an upgraded and expanded resource that will be calculated in 2022, after all the assays from the current program are received.
This resource is expected to form the basis for a prefeasibility study that investigates the economic and engineering parameters of establishing a mine at Golden Summit.
So far this year, the company has completed more than 32,000 meters of drilling in 59 holes.
The turnaround time for assays from the expansive drill program at Golden Summit remains slow, largely as a result of the backlogs at assay prep facilities in Fairbanks.
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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