The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Third 2021 hole at Betty Ford cuts 50 meters of 3.5 g/t gold North of 60 Mining News – November 19, 2021
A rig being moved during the first diamond drill program at White Gold's Betty project in the Yukon.
White Gold Corp. Nov. 17 reported strong gold mineralization encountered during this summer's diamond drill program at the Betty Ford target on the company's Betty gold project in the Yukon.
"It's nice to finally see the Betty project get its first round of diamond drilling," said White Gold Chief Technical Advisor Shawn Ryan.
Situated about 15 kilometers (nine miles) northeast of Western Copper and Gold Corp.'s Casino copper-gold deposit and 40 kilometers (25 kilometers) east of Newmont Corp's Coffee Gold deposit, the 17,127-hectare (42,322 acres) Betty property covers the eastern strike extension of Coffee Creek Fault, which exerts structural controls on the 2.1-million-ounce Coffee gold deposit.
Located near the center of the Betty property, the Betty Ford target is a roughly 1,000-meter-long gold-in-soil anomaly with up to 1,961 parts per billion gold.
"I staked the project back in 2010 to cover two key intersecting regional structures, namely the Dip Creek fault (NE) and the prospective Coffee Creek fault (EW)," said Ryan. "Since then, we have conducted a systematic soil program that has outlined a large gold mineralized system. This is the same exploration path that led to the discovery of the Golden Saddle and Coffee deposits."
White Gold said bedrock exposure in this area is extremely limited. To test what lies below cover, the company carried out a six-hole rotary air blast drill program during 2018.
Highlights from this RAB drilling include:
• 24.4 meters averaging 0.94 grams per metric ton gold in hole BETFRDRAB18-001.
• 50.3 meters averaging 1.08 g/t gold in BETFRDRAB18-002.
• 13.7 meters averaging 0.75 g/t gold in BETFRDRAB18-003.
This year, White Gold drilled six diamond holes testing a 500-meter-long gold-in-soil anomaly of the Betty Ford target.
Highlights from this diamond drilling include:
• 48 meters averaging 1.17 g/t gold from a depth of 19 meters in hole BETFD21D001, including a 10-meter higher-grade core averaging 2.38 g/t gold and a one-meter upper zone of 9.03 g/t gold starting at a depth of five meters.
• 50 meters averaging 3.46 g/t gold from a depth of 33 meters in hole BETFD21D003, including a 19-meter higher grade core averaging 5.25 g/t gold and a 9.8-meter upper zone of 1.14 g/t gold from a depth of 6.1 meters.
"Hole 3 ranks amongst the best holes drilled in the district, including at our flagship Golden Saddle deposit, and has considerably extended the recently discovered broad zone of near surface gold mineralization, while encountering significantly higher-grade gold mineralization and remains open along strike," said White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio. "We look forward to following up on these exciting results and to testing the other prospective targets on the Betty property, located in such close proximity to existing large gold and copper deposits and situated along the same fault structure."
Ryan says the gold tapped in BETFD21D003 is reminiscent of the 50 meters of 3.1 g/t gold tapped in a 2008 hole drilled at the Golden Saddle deposit on the company's flagship White Gold property and 33.5 meters of 5.1 g/t gold drilled at Newmont's Coffee project.
"This diamond drilling program is a great start to hopefully leading to the Yukon's next big discovery," the White Gold co-founder added.
White Gold's 2021 diamond drill program also tested Betty White, a more than 800-meter-long gold-arsenic-antimony soil anomaly about 700 meters north of Betty Ford. Assays are pending.
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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