The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Geophysics offer targets to further test economic potential North of 60 Mining News – April 8, 2022
A drill tests the Bronk target during Kenorland Minerals' maiden diamond drill program on the Healy gold project in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District.
A stacked cross-section showing Kenorland's geological interpretation, induced polarization chargeability, direct current resistivity, and magnetotelluric resistivity at the Bronk, Thor, and Spike targets on the Healy gold project in Alaska.
Kenorland Minerals Ltd. April 1 reported that its 2021 drilling at the Healy gold project provides further evidence of a large gold system on the 45,600-acre (18,470 hectares) land package in Alaska's Goodpaster Mining District.
"The maiden diamond drill program confirmed the presence of a large-scale gold system at Healy evidenced by broad mineralisation encountered throughout the wide-spaced drilling across multiple target areas," said Kenorland Minerals CEO Zach Flood.
Northway Resources Corp., an arm's length publicly-traded company that merged with Kenorland through a reverse takeover, cut a deal with Newmont to earn up to a 70% joint venture interest in Healy by completing at least US$4 million of exploration on the property by the end of 2022.
The work carried out by Northway began in 2019 with an 800-meter reverse circulation drill program testing targets recommended in a Newmont report on the property. The 10 shallow RC holes encountered broadly disseminated gold mineralization over a 100-meter-wide structural corridor in the Bronk zone, including 49.4 meters averaging 0.42 grams per metric ton gold from surface.
During the 2020 exploration season, Northway completed detailed soil sampling and geophysical surveys that have identified robust gold-in-soil anomalies associated with structural features and induced polarization anomalies within three primary target areas – Bronk, Thor, and Spike.
The 2021 maiden diamond drill program at Healy included 14 widely-spaced holes testing all three targets.
The first hole of the 2021 program, 21HDD011, cut intervals of broad low-level gold mineralization within a steeply dipping shear zone at the southern end of Bronk. Intercepts in this hole include 37.68 meters of 0.12 g/t gold from a depth of 246.2 meters, 36.8 meters of 0.33 g/t gold from 340.2 meters, 20.55 meters of 0.16 g/t gold from 384 meters, and 21.9 meters of 0.22 g/t gold from 416.3 meters.
Hole 21HDD024, drilled 800 meters north of 21HDD011, also cut multiple intervals of low-level gold mineralization along the same structure; intercepts in the hole include 11.82 meters of 0.12 g/t gold from a depth of 108.5 meters, 32.76 meters of 0.13 g/t gold from 167 meters, 35.56 meters of 0.26 g/t gold from 284.6 meters, and 26.41 meters of 0.19 g/t gold from 335.9 meters.
21HDD012, drilled a further 600 meters north of 21HDD024, cut 53.64 meters of 0.16 g/t gold from a depth of 83.5 meters and 21HDD013, a further 300-meter step-out north of 21HDD012, cut 34.86 meters of 0.19 g/t gold from a depth of 224.2 meters.
Together, these holes have tapped low-level gold mineralization at Bronk over a strike of 1,700 meters with a mineralized footprint of up to 500 meters wide.
Higher grade gold was tapped at Thor, which lies about 2,000 meters west of Bronk.
Hole 21HDD017 cut 11.9 meters averaging 1.29 g/t gold within the hanging wall of a low-angle structure from a depth of 121.5 meters.
Hole 21HDD019, a 250-meter step-out south of 21HDD017, cut 13.38 meters of 1.22 g/t gold within the hanging wall of a similar low angle structure from a depth of 20.2 meters.
The known mineralized footprint at Thor is currently 500 by 500 meters and remains open.
Kenorland says the broadly disseminated and vein-hosted low-level gold mineralization encountered in all target areas last year confirms the presence of a large gold system. The alteration, mineralization, and geochemical signature suggest a distal environment of an intrusion-related system with widespread fluid flow permeating along low-angle thrust faults and high-angle shear zones.
The company says high-power Titan induced polarization and magnetotelluric geophysical surveys completed towards the end of the 2021 drill program support this geological interpretation and highlight significant untested geophysical anomalies associated with mineralization, controlled by structural and lithological traps.
"While there are many indications that Healy represents a significant greenfields gold discovery within Alaska's prolific Goodpaster Mining District, it will require additional drill testing to fully evaluate the economic potential," said Flood. "We will provide an update on our exploration plans going forward after we have completed a detailed review of the results and targets with Newmont Corporation, who currently holds a 30% participating interest in Healy."
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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