The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Focus on West Fault, with Bighorn and Middlecoff targets too North of 60 Mining News – January 21, 2022
A picturesque view, north across the McQuesten river from a ridge above West Fault.
Alianza Minerals Ltd. Jan. 18 released its first 2022 announcement with the overall results of 2021 and the outlines for this year's program at many of its properties including the 100% owned Haldane silver project in the Yukon's Keno Hill District.
"We had an extremely productive year in 2021, marked by advancement of the exciting new West Fault high-grade silver target at our Haldane project in Yukon's historic Keno Hill Mining District," said Jason Weber, president and CEO of Alianza Minerals.
Located about 25 kilometers (16 miles) west of Alexco Resource Corp's Keno Hill silver mine, the 8,579-hectare (21,200 acres) Haldane property hosts a small historical mine that produced roughly 24.7 metric tons of hand-sorted ore averaging 3,102 grams per metric ton (99.7 ounces per metric ton) silver and 59% lead on the south side of Bighorn Creek.
A vein on the north side of Bighorn Creek produced another 2.1 metric tons of hand-sorted ore averaging 4,602 g/t (148 oz/t) silver and 57.9% lead in 1926 and 1927.
Focused on further defining its new West Fault target, the 2021 drill program got underway in the spring to follow-up the results from the 2020 intersection – 16.15 meters (8.7 meters estimated true-width) averaging 311 g/t silver, including 3.3 meters (1.8 meters estimated true-width) averaging 818 g/t silver – with 50-meter step-outs along strike and down dip, extending mineralization 100 meters along strike and 90 meters down trend.
This campaign encountered even higher-grade mineralization at West Fault.
One such hole, HLD21-24 cut 5.24 meters (3.14 meters estimated true-width) averaging 1,351 g/t silver, 2.9% zinc, and 2.4% lead, including 2.1 meters (1.26 meter true-width) averaging 3,267 g/t silver, 7% zinc, and 5.8% lead.
Drilling revealed two splays of strongly mineralized veins within the West Fault Complex.
The next phase of drilling is planned to test the West Fault Complex vein mineralization to the southwest and down dip to determine the extent of high-grade silver mineralization at this target.
The program is expected to get started in the summer with a minimum of 2,000 meters of drilling planned. In addition to the high-priority West Fault, plans for additional holes at the Middlecoff and the recently discovered Bighorn targets are being drawn up as well.
The company reports that program details will be made available once finalized.
In addition to Alianza's own work at Haldane, Coeur Mining Inc. carried out its initial exploration of Alianza's Tim silver property in southern Yukon during the 2021 season.
Tarsis Resources Ltd., a predecessor to Alianza, completed a focused work program in 2013 to re-evaluate this historical zone of silver- and lead-rich mineralization. This work included resampling of the central trench, which returned 365 g/t silver and 7.5% lead across a 3.7-meter channel sample.
Under a 2020 option agreement, Coeur can earn an 80% interest in the Tim property by funding C$3.55 million in exploration over five years and paying C$575,000 to Alianza in scheduled cash payments over eight years. Coeur must also fund a feasibility study and notify Alianza of its intention to develop a commercial mine on the property on or before the eighth anniversary of receiving the primary permit needed to begin exploration.
Coeur's 2021 program at Tim included SkyTEM airborne geophysics, mapping, soil geochemical sampling and trenching in 2021.
Re-opening of these trenches in 2021 exposed oxidized material thought to be related to carbonate replacement mineralization, similar in nature to silver-bearing mineralization seen elsewhere in the region.
In total, 1,298 soil samples, 38 rock chip and grab samples from the historic trenches, and four rock grab samples from regional reconnaissance were collected during the program.
Assays are pending from this sampling at Tim.
Apart from its northern projects, Alianza, together with Alliance partner Cloudbreak Discovery, PLC, recently optioned the Klondike copper property in Colorado to Allied Copper Corp.
"We also made great progress introducing our Copper Alliance in the Southwest United States, making two acquisitions, and farming out one project," said Weber. "Including our work at our Tim project with our partner Coeur, we are expecting four drilling programs on Alianza projects in 2022."
Finally, Alianza also has optioning available for the company's Twin Canyon Gold property in Colorado.
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