The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2021 - January 27, 2022
Looking northwest toward the high-grade Caribou Dome copper project on PolarX' Alaska Range property.
Coarse-grained native copper encountered during the 2021 drill program at PolarX' Caribou Dome project in Alaska.
During a 2021 exploration program focused largely on collecting further geological and metallurgical data for a scoping study on establishing a mine at its Alaska Range property, PolarX Ltd. made a game-changing high-grade copper discovery.
As its name suggests, this property covers a 22-mile- (35 kilometers) long stretch of the majestic and mineral-rich Alaska mountain range that arcs across the middle of the Far North state.
PolarX' 2021 program focused on two high-grade copper deposits already identified at Alaska Range.
This includes a scoping-level study and further exploration of Zackly, a high-grade gold-copper-silver skarn deposit that lies at the center of a 7.5-mile- (12 kilometers) long mineralized corridor toward the eastern end of the Alaska Range property.
Based on drilling by PolarX and previous explorers, Zackly Main hosts 3.4 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.2% (90.4 million pounds) copper, 2 grams per metric ton (213,000 oz) gold, and 14 g/t (1.5 million oz) silver.
Drilling by PolarX in 2018 and 2020 discovered and expanded upon Zackly East, a particularly robust skarn discovery made by the company in 2018 about 650 meters east of the resource.
Highlights from drilling at Zackly East include 54.6 meters averaging 2.8 g/t gold and 0.6% copper in hole ZX‐18020; 46.7 meters averaging 3.1 g/t gold and 0.6% copper in ZX‐18024; and 68.6 meters averaging 0.6 g/t gold and 0.3% copper in ZX20040.
PolarX says drilling has traced mineralization at Zackly East for more than 1,500 meters along strike and high-resolution magnetic data shows the structural system may extend for 2,500 meters.
Based on the results of the 2020 program, PolarX has decided to initiate a scoping study that will evaluate an operation that includes Zackly Main, Zackly East, and the Caribou Dome copper deposit.
Lying about 15 miles southwest of Zackly, Caribou Dome hosts 2.8 million metric tons of JORC-compliant resource averaging 3.1% (189.6 million lb) copper in nine lenses of volcanic sediment-hosted mineralization.
"We have always thought that Caribou had the potential to be a highly profitable open pit; what it doesn't yet have is the scale necessary to justify that size of investment," said PolarX Managing Director Frazer Tabeart.
The 2021 drill program, however, made a high-grade discovery that will likely rectify that.
The company started off the 2021 drilling with four holes into the known high-grade massive sulfide lenses to provide fresh samples for metallurgical testing to support a scoping study to assess the potential of processing ore from Caribou Dome in combination with ore mined from Zackly. All four cut multiple zones of spectacular copper-rich massive sulfides.
It was native copper encountered in volcanic rocks while drilling a coincident geophysical and geochemical anomaly outside the known resource, however, that excited PolarX.
"This discovery is a potential game-changer for PolarX because the same volcanic host rocks, along with multiple IP (geophysical) and geochemical targets, are widespread at Caribou Dome, meaning the exploration upside here is immense," said Tabeart.
The Australian company is excited about determining the scale of this discovery that could outshine the stellar deposit already outlined at Zackly.
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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