The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2022 - January 19, 2023
All of the significant grassroot discoveries for White Gold were made with soil sampling during its regional exploration programs, a trend the company will most likely not change.
Clouds settled between the mountains of the highly prospective White Gold District in Canada's Yukon.
Boots on the ground and soil samples in hand, ground truth exploration is a time-tested method that has led to many of White Gold Corp.'s various discoveries across its more than 1 million acres of prospective land in Yukon's prolific White Gold District, and 2022 exploration was no different.
With exploration across more than a dozen properties, targets, zones, or areas, there is a lot of ground to cover, and each program seems to unearth more and more for this Yukon gold miner.
"All of the significant grass roots discoveries in the White Gold District were initially identified through soil sampling," said White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio.
This search for trace elements in dirt that indicates gold in the bedrock below led to the discovery of White Gold's advanced stage Golden Saddle, Arc, and VG deposits – with the former two hosting 15.6 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.28 grams per metric ton (1.14 million ounces) gold and 9 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.39 g/t (402,100 oz) gold; and the latter hosting 5.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.62 (267,600 oz) gold.
This same soil sampling led to earlier stage discoveries such as Ryan's Surprise, Ulli's Ridge, and Betty, which had some exciting results during the 2022 exploration season.
Even adding on many new early-stage properties, White Gold has maneuvered itself into an unshakable position with a project that is difficult to ignore.
Setting the tone for the year, White Gold announced a significant high-grade discovery at Ulli's Ridge, an intriguing gold target about 2,000 meters southwest of the Golden Saddle and Arc deposits.
As the company first tested Ulli's Ridge with rotary air blast (RAB) drilling early in the 2021 season, White Gold found it prudent to follow up on the success of the results.
Highlights from 2021 drilling at Ulli's Ridge include: 5.13 meters averaging 2.04 g/t gold; eight meters averaging 1.03 g/t gold; 4.1 meters averaging 2.44 g/t gold; 4.49 meters averaging 1.91 g/t gold; 19.5 meters averaging 6.94 g/t gold; and 18.5 meters averaging 1.36 g/t gold in hole WHTULR21D005.
Due in part to these substantial results, White Gold mapped out an extensive C$6 million program largely supported by strategic partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.
The 2022 program was slated to include roughly 7,500 meters of drilling, including 5,000 meters of diamond drilling, 1,000 of reverse circulation (RC) drilling, and 1,500 meters of RAB drilling.
Drilling on the White Gold property began by focusing on the Ulli's Ridge and adjacent Ryan's Surprise target areas with the purpose of testing the gap area between the prospects to determine if they are part of the same mineralized zone and to further test the high-grade gold discovery at Ulli's where the 2021 drilling intersected 6.94 g/t gold over 19.5 meters in hole WHTULR21D004.
By July, the drills were shipped over to Betty. Intended to focus primarily on the Betty Ford and Mascot targets, this phase of drilling included roughly 2,200 meters of diamond drilling and 1,650 meters of reverse circulation drilling.
2022 drilling at Betty Ford focused on testing depth and strike extents of the gold mineralized zone identified during the 2021 program – which included 3.46 g/t gold over 50 meters in hole BETFD21D003 and 1.17 g/t gold over 48 meters in hole BETFD21D001.
Hole BETFD22D007, which cut 55.15 meters averaging 1.5 g/t gold, extended Betty Ford mineralization by 40 meters along strike.
Highlights from 2022 RC drilling at Mascot include 27.43 meters averaging 1.14 g/t gold; 9.14 meters averaging 1.48 g/t gold; 8.6 meters averaging 2.02 g/t gold; 17.35 meters averaging 1.25 g/t gold; and 3.95 meters averaging 2.85 g/t gold.
Although drilling was a large part of the focus for the year, White Gold did not stray from its proven methodologies. A regional early-stage exploration program included 10 properties with the goal of identifying and defining new targets.
Sticking to its roots, surface sampling identified significant copper, gold, and other multi-element soil anomalies within the Hayes and Pilot properties.
"We are encouraged by these results, especially with respect to their proximity to other significant deposits and new discoveries and are eager to follow up," said D'Onofrio.
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