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Deposit bodes well for future of Northern Star's Alaska mine North of 60 Mining News – May 6, 2022
Surface drilling has outlined 1.1 million ounces of gold in 3.2 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 10.3 g/t gold at the Goodpaster discovery on Northern Star's Pogo property.
Click on the image for a larger version of the Goodpaster cross-section with drill intervals.
Northern Star Resources Ltd. May 3 announced a 20% increase in the gold reserves at its Pogo Mine and a maiden resource for the Goodpaster discovery about 2,000 meters north of the current mining area on its Alaska property.
"The 20% increase in ore reserves and the addition of high grade mineral resources at the Goodpaster is exciting. It underpins the substantial growth potential at Pogo," said Jim Coxon, vice president of operations, North America at Northern Star Resources.
While COVID-19 and labor availability continued to impact in-mine drilling at Pogo during 2021, crews were still able to bolster gold reserves at the Interior Alaska mine.
As of March 31, Pogo hosts 6.59 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 8.5 grams per metric ton (1.8 million ounces) gold. In addition to replacing the ore mined over the past year, this represents a 20% boost to reserves at higher grade than the previous reserve estimate.
Northern Star attributes this substantial boost in gold reserves to underground predevelopment drilling, particularly in the high-grade Liese lode system.
What may be even more significant for the future of mining at Pogo is an inaugural resource estimate for Goodpaster, a discovery north of the active mine uncovered shortly before Northern Star's 2018 acquisition of the Alaska mine property.
Highlights from drilling at Goodpaster in 2018 and 2019 include: 2.2 meters of 28.1 g/t gold in hole 18-052; 0.6 meters of 100 g/t gold in hole 18-058; 0.3 meters of 170 g/t gold in hole 18-069; and 1.3 meters of 27.5 g/t gold in hole 19-084.
After cutting back on exploration at Pogo due to COVID-19, Northern Star returned to Goodpaster late in the third quarter of 2020 and continued resource drilling at the discovery into 2021.
Highlights from the 2021 drilling at Goodpaster include: 6.8 meters averaging 18.4 g/t gold in hole 21-022; 1.3 meters averaging 55 g/t gold in hole 21-033; 2.3 meters averaging 23.3 g/t gold in hole 21-079; one meter of 115.1 g/t gold and one meter of 214 g/t gold in hole 21-084; and 6.9 meters averaging 22.8 g/t gold in hole 21-094.
Northern Star says this drilling has confirmed the geological model of shallow to moderately dipping shear zones at Goodpaster containing stacked quartz vein arrays combined with several strike-extensive zones of sub-vertical quartz veining. The company says this structural style and characteristic gold-bismuth-telluride mineralization is comparable to the existing northern mining areas at Pogo such as the Fun Zone.
Based on 214 holes drilled, Goodpaster now hosts 3.2 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 10.3 g/t (1.1 million oz) gold.
Overall, the immediate Pogo mine area and Goodpaster deposit host 9.57 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 11 g/t (3.4 million oz) gold and 12.27 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 9.7 g/t (3.8 million oz) gold.
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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