The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Sediment sampling leads to prospective trend on property North of 60 Mining News – September 29, 2023
Sampling of this ferricrete (sediments cemented by iron oxide) returned grades as high as 3,690 parts per million zinc.
Click on image for larger Ambler schist belt map.
Trilogy Metals Inc. Sept. 27 reported that stream sediment and rock sampling has identified two zinc-enriched volcanogenic massive sulfide targets on the Helpmejack project toward the eastern end of the Ambler schist belt in Alaska.
Lying about 110 miles southeast of the world-class Arctic VMS deposit being advanced by Ambler Metals LLC, a joint venture owned equally by Trilogy and South32 Ltd., Helpmejack is an area first identified as prospective for zinc and copper in the 1970s but has seen little modern exploration.
Last year, Trilogy staked 19,520 acres of state claims over the Helpmejack area, plus 12,480 acres of claims over Malemute, a prospective area about 35 miles further east.
"We see upside in the Helpmejack and Malamute claims, which have relatively low holding costs but offer potential to add value for shareholders, in addition to the primary UKMP asset, especially as the United States is looking to secure domestic supplies of critical metals," said Trilogy Metals President and CEO Tony Giardini.
Trilogy is not the only UKMP partner exploring high-quality projects covering Arctic-like deposits in the eastern Ambler schist belt area. South32 is exploring the Roosevelt claims, an enormous land package that covers a roughly 50-mile-long stretch of the Ambler schist belt just north of the proposed Ambler Road and about 15 miles east of Helpmejack.
This year, Trilogy traced anomalous levels of zinc identified in stream sediment samples to several upstream tributaries and found significant levels of zinc and copper in an adjacent catchment area. Many of these streams are strongly anomalous in zinc (greater than 500 parts per million) and cadmium (greater than 10 ppm), with anomalous levels of other elements characteristic of Besshi-style VMS deposits and shale-hosted zinc deposits.
The anomalous drainages follow the strike of the geology for five to six kilometers (3.1 to 3.7 miles) through the center of the claim block. Bright orange iron oxide staining along several of these streams is visible from the air, and a grab sample collected adjacent to mapped mafic volcanics assayed 0.8% zinc with anomalous cadmium, manganese, cobalt, molybdenum, nickel, sulfur, and antimony.
A stream-sediment sample collected south of this trend contained 3,100 ppm zinc and 49 ppm cadmium. Two repeat samples collected nearby contained 3,120 and 39 ppm cadmium, and 3,690 ppm zinc and 63 ppm cadmium.
Trilogy says these samples represent the highest zinc and cadmium values in Trilogy's database of more than 2,800 stream sediment samples collected throughout the Ambler Schist Belt, including streams draining the world-class Arctic VMS deposit.
"The enrichments found in these stream sediments cannot be dismissed as metal scavenging and are thought to reflect the presence of zinc sulphide mineralization," said Trilogy Metals Vice President of Exploration Richard Gosse. "Recommended follow-up work at Helpmejack includes ridge and spur soil sampling along with mapping and rock sampling, a low-cost program to find and evaluate the source of the zinc in the stream sediments."
Stream-sediment sampling on the Malamute claims verified anomalous levels of cobalt in historical sediments collected by the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys between 1977 and 1982. Trilogy's samples contain greater than 300 ppm cobalt and up to 240 ppm copper in four adjacent north-south drainages and define a 1.5- by 3.7-mile (2.5 by six kilometers) target area that is largely covered by overburden. Follow-up soil samples along ridges and spurs, and geological mapping are recommended.
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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