The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2022 - January 19, 2023
Inspecting core from drilling at Gold Terra's district-scale Yellowknife City Gold project in Northwest Territories.
Looking to expand the resources at the Yellowknife City Gold projects, Gold Terra Resource Corp. 2022 exploration included drilling on its Con Option and Northbelt properties, which are part of a 309-square-mile (800 square kilometers) land package that covers roughly 43 miles (70 kilometers) of the Yellowknife greenstone belt in Northwest Territories.
Gold Terra began accumulating this district-scale land package in 2013, with the Northbelt property that extends north from the city of Yellowknife. Over the past decade, the company has completed more than 60,000 meters of drilling within a 3,000-meter radius on Northbelt that includes the Crestaurum, Barney, Sam Otto, and Mispickel gold deposits.
According to a calculation completed in 2021, the four Northbelt deposits host 24.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.25 grams per metric ton (1.21 million ounces) of gold.
Gold Terra kicked off its 2022 exploration with a 6,011-meter winter drill program at MP-Ryan, an expanded zone in the Mispickel area of Northbelt.
Highlights from early 2022 drilling at MP-Ryan include four meters averaging 19 g/t gold in hole GTWL22-002; three meters averaging 9.36 g/t gold in hole GTWL22-004; six meters averaging 4.17 g/t gold in hole GTWL22-008; and three meters averaging 31.89 g/t gold in hole GTWL22-014.
The bulk of Gold Terra's 2022 drilling, however, focused on the Con Mine property optioned from Newmont Canada FN Holdings ULC and Miramar Northern Mining Ltd. – both wholly-owned subsidiaries of Newmont Corp.
During 2021, Gold Terra completed 26 holes totaling 12,687 meters over a strike length of 3,000 meters immediately south of Con, a historic mine on the outskirts of NWT's capital city that produced 6.1 million oz of gold from ore averaging 15 to 20 g/t gold during mining from 1938 until 2003.
Highlights from the 2021 drilling at Yellorex, a primary target south of Con Mine, include 16.5 meters averaging 3.32 g/t gold in hole CTCM21-003; 12.35 meters averaging 5.77 g/t gold in hole CTCM21-005; 17.9 meters averaging 5.22 g/t gold in hole CTCM21-014; and 5.44 meters averaging 19.74 g/t gold in hole CTCM21-022.
Toward the end of 2021, Newmont granted Gold Terra the option to acquire Miramar Northern Mining Ltd., which will provide the company full ownership of all the assets, mineral leases and claims, and surface rights at and around the Con Mine.
Under the agreement with Newmont, Gold Terra must complete C$8 million of exploration over four years, publish a prefeasibility study based on at least 1.5 million oz of gold in resources, and make a final cash payment of C$8 million to Newmont.
In September, Gold Terra published its inaugural resource estimate for the Con Mine property based on 21,019 meters of drilling in 41 holes.
According to this initial calculation, the Con option property hosts 821,000 metric tons of underground mineable indicated resource averaging 7.55 g/t (109,000 oz) gold and 1.99 million metric tons of underground inferred resource averaging 6.74 g/t (432,000 oz) gold.
"This initial mineral resource estimate on the Con Mine Option Property represents a measuring stick of our progress toward satisfying one of the requirements of the option agreement with Newmont, namely delineating a potential of a minimum of 1.5 million ounces of gold in all categories," said Gold Terra Resource Chairman and CEO, Gerald Panneton. "This initial MRE confirms the significant high-grade potential of this project as it remains open for further expansion in all directions, and along its 6-kilometre-long structure."
This is the same Campbell Shear structure that hosts the historical Con Mine, which produced more the five million ounces of gold from ore averaging around 16 g/t gold.
"We look forward to continuing our drilling program on the Campbell Shear with the goal of advancing the project towards an economic study and bringing further value to our shareholders by discovering more multi-million ounces deposits on our projects," Panneton added.
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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