The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Aims to connect high-grade gold zones on SE Yukon property North of 60 Mining News - May 26, 2023
Drilling has identified several high-grade gold zones in the Central Core area at 3 Aces since this hole was drilled during the discovery program in 2011.
3 Aces hosts a rare combination of high gold grades and district scale.
Seabridge Gold Inc. May 25 announced that it is preparing for a 7,500-meter drill program at 3 Aces, a road-accessible project that covers 357 square kilometers (138 square miles) of high-grade gold discoveries in southeastern Yukon.
3 Aces, which hosts two of the highest-grade surface outcrops ever discovered in the Yukon, has 30 mineralized veins which have been discovered through sampling, trenching, roadwork, and drilling within its Central Core area.
Seabridge, which acquired 3 Aces from Golden Predator Mining Corp. in 2020, said the target concept for this high-grade project is consistent with some of the largest and richest gold deposits in the world, including the California Mother Lode Belt and the Juneau Gold Belt in Southeast Alaska.
Historical work has identified a broad area of gold-in-soil anomalies extending more than 20 kilometers (12.4 miles) along strike, and drilling had identified several gold-rich zones in the Central Core area of the property.
Of the 300 holes drilled at 3 Aces prior to Seabridge's acquisition, 37% cut grades exceeding 5 grams per metric ton gold, with 27% returning more than 8 g/t gold. Many of these holes were close-space off-sets on high-grade veins that come to the surface, but all veins identified in the Central Core Area have encountered high-grade intersections.
Seabridge's geological team has developed a model for 3 Aces that could help connect the many high-grade gold zones discovered by Golden Predator.
"Previous operators defined discrete zones of high-grade gold but encountered challenges connecting and extending these zones," said Seabridge Gold Chairman and CEO Rudi Fronk. "Our team has recognized structural controls that may be able to resolve the continuity issue."
The company planned to test this model for 3 Aces during 2022 but received drill permits too late in the season to carry out a meaningful program.
The first hole of the 2022 program, 3A22-355, was drilled to confirm that gold-bearing structures are hosted within secondary anticlinal folds and thrust faults as predicted by the company's model.
This hole cut 22.5 meters averaging 3.53 g/t gold in the Hearts Main zone of the Central Core area.
Three additional holes drilled to test for controls on down-dip extensions of high grades determined that the gold-bearing structures are pronounced as they continue down plunge but only carry coherent high grades where they exhibit flexures that enhance permeability.
"Last season's work gave us confidence in the grade controls predicted by our exploration model, and we are looking forward to expanding that understanding and moving towards resource delineation," said Fronk.
This year's program is slated to include roughly 7,500 meters of core and reverse circulation drilling to test four zones within the Central Core area – Spades, Hearts, Hearts West, and Clubs.
This drilling will evaluate three different settings where Seabridge's model predicts gold continuity.
Seabridge plans to begin its 2023 exploration program at 3 Aces with geophysical surveys to better refine identified targets prior to drilling.
The company said it would also resume its previously initiated reclamation activities focused on exploration roads at the site. Environmental monitoring activities focused on wildlife management, water sampling, and understanding environmental baseline conditions will also continue at 3 Aces.
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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