The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
2023 program focused on expanding high-grade resources North of 60 Mining News - July 19, 2023
Aerial view of the airstrip and newly refurbished 24-man camp on Valhalla Metals' Sun copper-zinc-lead-gold-silver project in the Ambler Mining District of Northwest Alaska.
A Major rig set up to drill hole SUN23-002, which is testing an area toward the north end of the Main Sun VMS deposit.
Click on image for larger 2023 Sun drill map.
Valhalla Metals Inc. July 19 announced the start of its 2023 exploration program at Sun, which is slated to include up to 4,000 meters of drilling focused on expanding the high-grade volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit on this property in Alaska's Ambler Mining District.
"We are excited to get our drill program underway. The Sun deposit is ripe for expansion," said Valhalla Metals Chairman Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse.
According to a 2018 calculation, Sun hosts 1.71 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 4.32% (163 million pounds) zinc, 1.48% (55.8 million lb) copper, 1.11% (42 million lb) lead, 60 grams per metric ton (3.3 million oz) silver, and 0.21 g/t (12,000 oz) gold; plus 9.02 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.18% (831.3 million lb) zinc, 1.21% (239.6 million lb) copper, 1.46% (290.3 million lb) lead, 81.7 g/t (22.7 million oz) silver, and 0.25 g/t (73,000 oz) gold.
With 10.7 million metric tons of resources averaging roughly 11% zinc-equivalent – calculating the value of all the metals in both resource categories – Sun is already considered a major deposit in terms of size and grade. A versatile time domain electromagnetic survey flown over the property, however, suggests that the near-surface deposit outlined with drilling so far represents only a fraction of a larger VMS system.
"A detailed evaluation of the VTEM survey indicates strong conductors between Sun and SW Sun, along strike and down dip," said Van Nieuwenhuyse. "The deposit has long been drilled to a down dip depth of 200 meters, whereas VMS deposits typically extend for kilometers down-dip and along strike."
Valhalla will begin exploring these strong conductors that are indicative of VMS mineralization with a 3,000- to 4,000-meter diamond core drill program slated for this year. This marks the first drilling at Sun in more than a decade and one of the largest single-season programs ever on the property.
This drilling being carried out by Major Drilling, which has a long history of successful drilling in the Ambler Mining District, will test for continuity of mineralization along strike and down-dip of the current resource, as well as test for continuity of mineralization along a roughly 900-meter gap between the Main Sun and SW Sun deposits.
"We see the potential to greatly expand the resource footprint with this summer's program and look forward to updating shareholders and investors later in the year, so stay tuned," the Valhalla Chairman added.
In addition to drilling, Valhalla's 2023 program is expected to include lidar and orthophotography (aerial imagery that is geometrically corrected so the scale is uniform) over the Sun and Smucker properties, and a ground gravity geophysical survey at Sun.
Valhalla's Smucker project, which lies about 60 miles northwest of Sun and 15 miles northwest of Ambler Metals' proposed Arctic Mine, hosts more than eight million metric tons of historical resource averaging 0.8% copper, 6.8% zinc, 2.3% lead, and 200 g/t silver.
CORRECTION 09-03-2023: Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse's Valhalla title was corrected to chairman.
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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