The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drills reserve grade gold 330 meters below current mine plan North of 60 Mining News – February 25, 2022
Drilling indicates the potential for millions of additional ounces of gold below the current reserves being mined at Victoria Gold Corp.'s Eagle Mine in the Yukon.
Victoria Gold Corp. Feb. 24 reported that 6,103 meters of drilling completed in nine holes testing Eagle Deep indicates the potential to add millions of ounces of gold below the reserves at the company's Eagle Mine in the Yukon.
Exploring the potential of extending the Eagle deposit from the 350-meter depth considered in the current mine plan to depths of at least 650 meters is part of Victoria's plan to delineate enough mineralization to keep the Eagle Mine in operation out to 2040 and beyond.
In 2017, the company drilled four exploratory holes to test how far gold mineralization extends below the current resource.
Highlights from this drilling include:
• 607.8 meters averaging 0.56 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 47.2 meters in hole DG17-930C, including 40.2 meters of 1.33 g/t gold from 362.3 meters.
• 122.3 meters averaging 0.71 g/t gold from a depth of 476.6 meters in hole DG17-937C, including 44.3 meters of 0.93 g/t gold from 551.1 meters.
• 624.1 meters averaging 0.5 meters from surface in hole DG17-922C, including 38.8 meters of 1.2 g/t gold from 468.3 meters.
• 423 meters averaging 0.59 g/t gold from a depth of 221 meters in hole DG17-910C, including 25.5 meters of 1.97 g/t gold from 612.5 meters.
The grades encountered below the current mine pit are comparable and oftentimes higher than the 148 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 0.64 g/t (3.06 million oz) gold in the mine plan prior to the start of production in 2019.
The latest East Deep drilling, which began late in 2020 and ran to May of 2021, encountered similar gold mineralization to depths of up to 680 meters.
Highlights include:
• 443.6 meters averaging 0.64 g/t gold from a depth of 24.4 meters in hole DG21-993C, including 175 meters of 1.22 g/t gold from 175 meters.
• 110.9 meters averaging 0.72 g/t gold from a depth of 201.6 meters in hole DG21-997C, including 50 meters of 0.79 g/t gold from 394 meters.
• 352 meters averaging 0.51 g/t gold from a depth of 61 meters in hole DG21-1000C, including 126 meters of 0.8 g/t gold from 278 meters.
"The Eagle Deep drilling below the Eagle Deposit clearly demonstrates potential to significantly extend the currently defined gold resource estimate at depth from the existing pit," said Victoria Gold President and CEO John McConnell. "While the current drilling is not of sufficient density to define resources or reserves, there is potential to add multi-million ounces and extend the mine life."
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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