Vertigo to see new White Gold drilling

White Gold Corp. June 21 announced the start of diamond drilling at Vertigo, an intriguing gold target in the White Gold District that has virtually seen no drilling since 2019.

Located approximately 30 kilometers (19 miles) northeast of the company's flagship White Gold project, Vertigo is a road-accessible target found within the JP Ross property roughly 80 kilometers (50 miles) south of Dawson City, Yukon.

After acquiring all of Kinross Gold Corp.'s projects in the White Gold District in 2017, which included JP Ross, the company carried out extensive drilling in the following years at Vertigo: 1,448.9 meters in 25 rotary air blast holes, 2,551.3 meters in 36 reverse circulation holes, and 9,568.5 meters in 46 diamond holes.

Highlights from the diamond drilling conducted in 2019 include:

• 4.15 meters averaging 9.61 grams per metric ton gold and 32.67 g/t silver from a depth of 20 meters in hole JPRVER19D005.

• 5.34 meters averaging 11.64 g/t gold and 31.68 g/t silver from 3 meters in JPRVER19D015, and 2.48 meters averaging 18.46 g/t gold and 23.9 g/t silver from 92 meters.

• 5.6 meters averaging 6.26 g/t gold and 21.7 g/t silver from 4 meters in JPRVER19D016.

• 18.25 meters averaging 1.36 g/t gold and 4.73 g/t silver from 22.75 meters in JPRVER19D043.

• 12.9 meters averaging 3.93 g/t gold and 23.41 g/t silver from 29.7 meters in JPRVER19D049.

• 55.05 meters averaging 0.85 g/t gold and 4.89 g/t silver from 49.2 meters in JPRVER19D050.

Despite these sizable numbers, exploration work at Vertigo had taken the backseat for the more advance-staged projects at White Gold's disposal.

One RAB hole was drilled at Vertigo in 2020, and six trenches were excavated in 2021. However, since then, this prospective target has been put on the back burner until now.

Recently, White Gold reviewed and interpreted available borehole optical televiewer and trench structural data that indicated three possible mineralized veins at Vertigo – a primary west-northwest striking vein set that had been the focus of previous drilling; a north-northeast striking secondary vein set which dips steeply to both the west and east; and a set of narrow sheeted quartz veins that strike east-northeast and dip moderately north.

These latter veins were exposed during mechanical trenching in 2019, with vein samples returning encouraging results at the time; however, 2019 diamond drilling did not test this newly identified vein set due to the orientation of drilling.

The planned 2023 diamond drill program at Vertigo is designed to intersect all three vein sets and test for potential bulk tonnage gold mineralization due to greater continuity. The company plans to drill five holes totaling 1,100 meters that will test the mineralized zone near the trenching, as well as adjacent gold-in-soil anomalies roughly 250- to 300-meters to the east-northeast, southwest, and south.

All holes will be collared at a south-southeast dip. This drill orientation will hopefully intersect all three vein sets.

"We are excited to kick off our 2023 exploration program with the commencement of diamond drilling at the Vertigo target. Past exploration work at the Vertigo has encountered some of the highest-grade gold and silver to date on our district-scale land package and we are eager to test the recently revised structural interpretation based on new structural data," said White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio. "With its very high gold and silver grades and its location in one of the most prolific placer camps in the Yukon, Vertigo is a very exciting target to be testing this year in addition to the high grade Betty Ford target and the maiden diamond drill program on the Nolan property."