The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Drill tap new high-grade target southeast of current mining North of 60 Mining News - November 21, 2023
Click on image for larger Star gold prospect drill map.
Northern Star Resources Ltd. Nov. 20 announced the discovery of Star, an emerging gold deposit about 1,300 meters southeast of the Leise and North zones that have contributed most of the 4.8 million ounces of gold that have been produced over the past 17 years at the Pogo Mine in Alaska.
"Pogo drilling results continue to impress with near-mine opportunities underpinning the mine life and investment thesis for this operation," said Northern Star Resources Managing Director and CEO Stuart Tonkin.
Since acquiring Pogo in 2019, Northern Star has continually expanded gold resources along a five-mile (eight kilometers) corridor centered on the Leise zones.
As of the end of March, Pogo hosted 5.9 million metric tons of proven and probable reserves averaging 8.6 grams per metric ton (1.6 million oz) gold.
In addition, the property hosts 9.7 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 10.9 g/t (3.4 million oz) gold, plus 11.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 10.7 g/t (4 million oz) gold.
These higher-grade resources extend from the more than 1 million oz Goodpaster deposit about 1,600 meters northwest of the Leise zones to the Leise East (formerly Hill 4021) zone about 2,500 meters to the southeast.
This year, Northern Star reported a new discovery named Star about midway between Leise and Leise East.
The company says the Star structure and parallel veins demonstrate many similarities to the Liese and Goodpaster vein systems to the northwest.
Earlier this year, the company reported that discovery drilling at Star cut 9.7 meters averaging 52.9 g/t gold and 6.9 meters averaging 13.2 g/t gold.
Highlights from 16 holes drilled since the May discovery include:
• 7.8 meters averaging 5.4 g/t gold in hole DH23-002.
• 0.9 meters averaging 35.8 g/t gold in hole DH23-004.
• 1.7 meters averaging 22.1 g/t gold in hole DH23-006.
• 10.5 meters averaging 3.9 g/t gold in hole DH23-010.
• 22.7 meters averaging 3.8 g/t gold in hole DH23-012.
Northern Star says this drilling has traced the Liese-style quartz vein system at Star for 450 meters along strike and 1,100 meters down-dip.
The wide-spaced exploration drilling being carried out during Northern Star's fiscal year 2024, which ends on June 30, has so far successfully mapped the up-dip extents and broad geometry of the Star quartz vein system.
The company says a full geology interpretation and economic assessment will occur for the remainder of FY 2024, prior to a targeted infill drilling program in FY 2025 to quantify resource potential at this newest Pogo Mine gold discovery.
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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