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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Betty Ford, Virtigo results find deeper, wider mineralization North of 60 Mining News - September 13, 2023
Located roughly 95 kilometers (59 miles) south of Dawson City, White Gold's namesake property is part of a roughly 350,000-hectare (864,869 acres) land package that covers approximately 40% of the White Gold District.
Click image to see larger map of the Betty Ford results.
White Gold Corp. Sept. 7 announced the initial assay results from the 2023 drilling on its Betty and JP Ross properties in Yukon, Canada, two of the three target areas the company has outlined for this year's program.
Betty and JP Ross are located approximately 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast and 30 kilometers (19 miles) northeast, respectively, from White Gold's namesake flagship project, which hosts 16.11 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.23 grams per metric ton (1.15 million ounces) gold; and 18.99 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.54 g/t (942,400 oz) gold across the Golden Saddle, Arc, Ryan's Surprise, and VG deposits.
Announced in mid-June, White Gold detailed a strategic 4,000-meter drill program aimed at prospecting the Betty Ford target at Betty, the Vertigo target at JP Ross, and the Cali target at the Nolan property; with first pass rotary air blast drilling on the Wolf and Toonie properties as well.
Additionally, induced polarization resistivity ground surveys are planned over the large early-stage Bridget and Hayes copper-molybdenum porphyry targets on the Pedlar and Hayes properties, as well as regional exploration on other properties, including geological mapping and prospecting, soil geochemistry surveys, and ground magnetics and VLF-EM geophysical surveys to generate possible new targets for future drill testing.
After a few months, White Gold has returned with some of the results from this program.
Diamond drilling at Betty Ford consisted of four holes totaling 1,165 meters to further evaluate the zone of near-surface high-grade gold mineralization encountered in 2021 (50 meters averaging 3.46 g/t gold in hole BETFD21D003) and in 2022 (18.29 meters averaging 8.94 g/t gold in hole BETFD22RC004), as well as test for the presence of a mineralized buried porphyry at depth and possible feeder contact/structure for gold mineralization.
Hole BETFD23D012 was drilled to test the potential feeder contact/structure. A VLF-EM survey suggested that the contact is characterized by a resistivity high to the south, while the gold mineralization encountered in existing holes appears to be at the contact zone with a resistivity low to the north.
This hole cut 8.3 meters averaging 1.2 g/t gold from a depth of 166.7 meters, which White Gold says is the deepest gold mineralization encountered to date at Betty Ford and is well within the sulfide domain.
Hole 012 also widened the polylithic breccia to the south by approximately 50 meters and now measures up to 90 meters locally in true width.
"We are pleased to encounter near-surface high-grade gold mineralization over such a broad zone at Betty Ford which remains open for expansion," said White Gold CEO David D'Onofrio. "Furthermore, we have also encountered the first occurrence of gold within the deeper sulphide domain of the polylithic breccia unit while testing for possible feeder structures, which represents an important development of our understanding of Betty Ford and the potential to even further extend mineralization controls at this high-grade target."
BETFD23D013 was drilled to a final depth of 503 meters and is now the deepest hole drilled at Betty Ford. Designed to primarily test for the presence of a mineralized buried porphyry intrusion at depth beneath the polylithic breccia unit, the hole was collared in oxidized mineralized breccia, which passed downwards into a transition zone at 60 meters.
Hole 013 cut 53 meters that averaged 3.38 g/t gold from 7.3 meters, including two higher-grade subintervals – 6.3 meters averaging 7.19 g/t gold and 4.35 meters averaging 8 g/t gold. This extends a high-grade zone mineralization discovered in hole BETFD21D003 (50 meters averaging 3.46 g/t gold) by 10 to 25 meters east.
Assay results for the lower portion of hole BETFD23D013 and holes 014 and D015 are pending.
The 2023 diamond drilling at Vertigo comprised five holes totaling 1,022 meters, which tested the mineralized zone near previous trenching and drilling, as well as adjacent gold-in-soil anomalies located 250 to 300 meters to the east-northeast, southwest, and south.
This drilling successfully identified two primary fault and vein arrays that strike west-northwest and northeast.
Hole JPRVER23D052 produced the most encouraging results, cutting 58.4 meters averaging 1.4 g/t gold from a depth of 40.95 meters, with narrower high-grade subintervals of 2.85 meters averaging 9.1 g/t gold and 4.8 meters averaging 6.68 g/t gold.
This hole confirms that Vertigo locally contains relatively broad zones of bulk tonnage gold mineralization.
Hole JPRVER23D051 was collared roughly 50 meters west-northwest of 052 and intersected three discrete gold mineralized zones of 1.3 meters averaging 4.37 g/t gold, 1.6 meters averaging 15.79 g/t gold, and 1.9 meters averaging 4.17 g/t gold.
White Gold says that intervening intervals between mineralization did not return any significant gold values, suggesting a variation in vein density and structure between the two holes.
Hole JPRVER23053 was drilled approximately 250 meters east-northeast of 052 to test a gold-in-soil anomaly and cut a single narrow zone of 1.9 meters averaging 2.77 g/t gold from 64.45 meters depth.
Holes JPRVER23D054 and 055, drilled to the south and west-southwest to test additional gold-in-soil anomalies, did not encounter significant mineralization.
The company adds that additional surface targets on the project remain to be drill-tested, as Vertigo has seen only relatively shallow drilling, so opportunities remain for the discovery of additional high-grade zones.
"The diamond drilling at Vertigo has improved our structural interpretation of the known mineralization controls at this high-grade gold target," added D'Onofrio. "These results continue to demonstrate the expansiveness of gold mineralization in our underexplored district scale exploration portfolio in a tier 1 mining district."
White Gold will also be presenting and providing an update at the 2023 Precious Metals Summit Beaver Creek in Colorado between Sept. 12 to Sept. 15, with the corporate presentation slated for Sept. 14.
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