The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
2022 drill program to test the source of placer gold deposits North of 60 Mining News – February 11, 2022
A view over the camp and former placer gold mine at Little Squaw Creek toward the mountains where Goldrich Mining plans to carry out around 4,000 meters of drilling this year.
Goldrich Mining Company Feb. 8 announced that it plans to carry out a roughly 4,000-meter drill program this year at its Chandalar gold property in northern Alaska.
Located about 190 miles north of Fairbanks, the 23,000-acre Chandalar property hosts rich deposits of placer gold and several hardrock gold occurrences and historic mines.
Drilling carried out by Goldrich in 2010 outlined an estimated 250,000 ounces of placer gold in 10.5 million cubic yards of gravel in the Little Squaw Creek valley. Roughly 53,390 oz of gold was recovered from this deposit during mining carried out from 2009 until 2018.
A scoping level study completed for Goldrich in 2021 outlined plans for a financially robust placer gold mine based on 4.8 million cubic yards of measured and indicated resource averaging 0.285 oz/cy (138,000 oz) gold.
Goldrich's 2022 drill program, however, is focused on exploring for the hardrock source of the rich placer gold deposits at Chandalar.
"The initial assessment report on the placer deposit shows an after-tax cash flow that is approximately six times our market cap at current gold prices – however we believe the potential value of the hardrock portion, the source of the placer deposit, dwarfs the value of the placer. We are very excited for this drill program," said Goldrich President and CEO William Schara.
The target zone of the 2022 drill program is immediately above and partially overlapping the Little Squaw Creek placer deposit and mine. The target zone sits at the heart of a zone surrounded by historic placer workings in every creek drainage and four historic hardrock gold mines. Goldrich says the angularity of the placer gold nuggets in the placer deposits indicates their close proximity to a hardrock source.
The roughly 4,000 meters of diamond drilling proposed for this year will be completed from six drill pads.
Goldrich says most of the proposed drill pads are currently situated at mine sites, wide spots in existing roads, or former drill sites.
Because the Chandalar mining district hosts a network of well-used access roads and pathways connecting the historic mines and most prospect sites, Goldrich says there is no need for a helicopter to support the drill program, which will help minimize the costs.
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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