The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Caribou Dome now hosts 2.6X more copper plus 1.5M oz silver North of 60 Mining News - June 13, 2023
Native copper cut in a 2021 hole drilled at Caribou Dome.
Click on image for larger Alaska Range map.
PolarX Ltd. June 13 announced a massive increase in the quantities of copper and silver contained within the Caribou Dome deposit on its Alaska Range project.
According to the updated resource estimate, Caribou Dome now hosts 7.2 million metric tons of measured, indicated, and inferred resources averaging 3.1% (224,375 metric tons) copper and 6.5 grams per metric ton (1.5 million oz) silver.
This is 2.6 times the contained copper than in a 2017 resource estimate and is the first calculation to also include silver.
"The new mineral resource estimate at Caribou Dome is a very exciting milestone for PolarX as the company progresses its Alaskan assets from exploration to mine development," said PolarX Managing Director Jason Berton.
A 2022 Alaska Range scoping study investigated the potential of building a central mill that would process ore from Caribou Dome and Zackly, the two most deposits on the roughly 22-mile- (35 kilometers) long Alaska Range property.
This study, based on the 2017 resource estimate, envisioned an open-pit mine at the Caribou Dome carbonate-hosted copper deposit and underground operation at Zackly, a skarn deposit about 15 miles (24 kilometers) northeast of Caribou Dome that hosts 4 million metric tons of indicated and inferred resources averaging 1.1% (45,000 metric tons) copper, 1.6 g/t (213,000 oz) gold, and 12.6 g/t (1.6 million oz) silver.
With Caribou Dome now contributing an extra 138,375 metric tons of copper and 1.5 million oz of silver to the Alaska Range project, PolarX is revisiting the mine plan.
Combined, Zackly and Caribou Dome contain 269,000 metric tons of copper, 213,000 oz of gold and 3.1 million oz of silver in 11.2 million metric tons of high-grade resources.
"This increased resource will underpin a revised scoping study to assess the bigger opportunity we now have," said Berton.
PolarX realized that the Caribou Dome resources may be much larger than previously calculated during the process of developing the 2022 scoping study.
A review of wide high-grade intercepts drilled by PolarX at Caribou Dome in 2021, along with field mapping of geological structures and collection of further specific gravity data prompted PolarX to commission an independent review of the 2017 estimate. This led to a reinterpretation of historical exploration data and a new independent and peer-reviewed resource estimate for Caribou Dome.
Using this additional data, the reinterpreted ore lenses have greater structural continuity along strike and greater widths in some areas than previously modeled. It was also discovered that the mineralization projected to a shallower projected vertical depth of 300 meters, in contrast to the previous 450 meters, which underscores the potential for future resource extensions.
"This is a game-changing advance which again shows Alaska Range has project scale with huge scope to keep growing resource inventory," said Berton.
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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