The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Silver resource building, deposit expansion are primary goals North of 60 Mining News - June 5, 2023
Drill core from WPC22-11, a hole drilled last year that cut 11.5 meters averaging 337 g/t silver, 16.7% zinc, and 10% lead.
Click on image for larger Waterpump Creek 2023 target map.
Western Alaska Minerals Corp. June 5 announced that the 2023 drill program is now underway at the high-grade Waterpump Creek silver deposit on the company's Illinois Creek property about 300 miles west of Fairbanks, Alaska.
First drilled by Western in 2021, Waterpump Creek is a carbonate replacement deposit (CRD) that hosted 166,000 tons of historical resource averaging 295 grams per metric ton silver, 16.1% lead, and 5.5% zinc.
The last holes of the 2021 program, WPC21-09, cut 10.5 meters averaging 522 g/t silver, 22.5% zinc, and 14.5% lead.
During 2022, Western focused its drilling on expanding upon the high-grade mineralization tapped in WPC21-09. Highlights from the 2022 program include:
• 5.1 meters averaging 459 g/t silver, 12.1% zinc, and 14.8% lead in hole WPC22-07.
• 11.5 meters averaging 337 g/t silver, 16.7% zinc, and 10% lead in hole WPC22-11.
• 2.8 meters averaging 1,304 g/t silver, 2.5% zinc, and 37.1% lead in hole WPC22-13.
• 48.8 meters averaging 144 g/t silver, 9% zinc, and 5.5% lead in hole WPC22-17.
• 101.7 meters averaging 160 g/t silver, 5.4% zinc, and 5.3% lead in hole WPC22-18.
• 5.1 meters averaging 789 g/t silver, 14.9% zinc, and 22% lead in hole WPC22-21.
• 22.7 meters averaging 293 g/t (9.4 oz/t) silver, 20.3% zinc, and 9% lead in hole WPC22-22.
This year's program will focus on building a resource around the thick silver intercept cut from hole WPC22-18 and significantly expanding the overall size of the flat-lying (manto) carbonate replacement deposit outlined last year.
A larger drill rig added to Western's fleet is expected to play a critical role in achieving the company's 2023 objectives.
"We are excited about the commencement of the upcoming drill season as we expand on our high-grade Waterpump Creek mineralization with the aid of a new heavy duty drill rig designed to enhance drill production and core recovery," said Western Alaska Minerals CEO Kit Marrs. "In 2022, we defined a 450-meter strike length of very high-grade silver-lead-zinc mineralization, and we anticipate extending the manto this year by potentially 2X or 3X."
This doubling or tripling of the Waterpump footprint is expected to come largely from tracing mineralization to the south, which is where the new drill will be deployed. This new rig will initially pick up on the southern expansion completed last year before jumping further south to test for potential Waterpump Creek mineralization at Last Hurrah.
Induced polarization geophysics indicates that the Illinois Creek fault, a northeast-ending structure that crosses the southern end of the Waterpump Creek mineralization drilled so far, has offset the CRD mineralized body.
The geophysical results show a fault-offset resistivity anomaly that is a Waterpump Creek look-alike but is 1,400 meters long, which is more than three times longer than the current known Waterpump Creek sulfide body. This geophysical anomaly in the Last Hurrah area continues to the limits of the previous IP survey.
To gain a better picture of the subsurface, Western has contracted Dias Geophysical to carry out a state-of-the-art over Waterpump Creek, including extension areas to the north and south and the Last Hurrah target.
Dias' patented system provides maximum data density, which should provide Western with the most accurate shallow and deep subsurface electrical information available.
The geophysical data generated will be processed with advanced 3D inversion modeling as the survey progresses, which will allow Western to make virtually real-time drill targeting decisions.
"The Dias 3D IP survey could be a game changer for our program," said Marrs. "We anticipate that it will provide high-definition drill targeting data."
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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