White Cliff Minerals takes a new look at old Radium Point, a uranium project in NWT with significant silver, gold, copper, zinc, nickel, and cobalt potential.

White Cliff Minerals Ltd. May 19 announced its latest progress as it gears up for its inaugural field expedition at the Great Bear Lake (formerly known as Radium Point) in Canada's Northwest Territories.

Covering a land package of 3,300 square kilometers (1,274 square miles) in the Echo Bay district of the northern Great Bear magmatic zone (GBMZ), Radium Point comprises an extensively hydrothermally altered and mineralized Proterozoic continental andesitic stratovolcano-plutonic complex.

Simply put, this is a place where an ancient volcano was heavily changed by hot water over time, making it rich in minerals.

Acquiring the necessary licensing from Northwest Territories government in May, the Australian-based White Cliff has quickly gotten to work organizing this historic mining region.

Discovered around the turn of the 20th century and further explored in 1930, production at Radium Point began just two years later, persisting until 1982. Prior to 1985, extensive historical work by various public institutions and private companies unveiled widespread undrilled mineralization.

Historical production figures (pre-1982) include 13.7 million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8), 34.2 million ounces of refined silver, 11.38 million lb of copper with gold credits, 104,000 kilograms of lead, 127,000 kilograms of nickel, and 227,000 kilograms of cobalt.

Having already produced more than US$2 billion worth of metals, this project remains one of Canada's most prospective regions for base, precious, and energy metals.

Collated data

With a modern look at the historical data, White Cliff has managed to determine what it views as the highest priority targets for the region and expects to begin its maiden drilling sometime this year. These include:

• Thompson Showing: A high-grade polymetallic area south of the historic Echo Bay and Eldorado mines that includes uranium anomalies from prior airborne radiometry surveys. Historic rock chips include 14.15% U3O8, 6.22 grams per metric ton gold, and 122 g/t silver.

• Hunter Bay Extension (Sloan): Immediately along strike from the historical (non-industry-compliant) estimate of 100,000 metric tons of 8.4% copper at Sloan. Limited sampling in 2006 returned up to 1.69% copper and 321 parts per million U3O8 along the northeast extension of the vein complex.

• Sparkplug Lake: An east-west trending structure adjacent to an obvious caldera collapse feature similar to Fortune Minerals Ltd. NICO and Sue Dianne iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits. Historic grab samples span a strike length of roughly 1,800 meters returning up to 8.28 g/t gold, 44 g/t silver, and 3.97% copper. The company adds that several structures of similar orientation also exist for a further 2,500 meters south.

• Spud Bay: Lying along strike from the historic Bonanza Silver Mine and striking northwest-by-southeast between granite and monzodiorite, Spud Bay hosts several high-grade silver, copper, cobalt, and zinc occurrences. Historic grab samples include 11.7% copper, 8.3% zinc, 22.7% copper, and 1,330 g/t silver.

"Historic rock chips results from the southern parts of the Great Bear Lake project have continued to reveal an underexplored, district scale opportunity which will be assessed during the upcoming 2024 field work," said White Cliff Managing Director Troy Whittaker. "Whilst works continue on this review, these initial results continue to demonstrate the district and regional potential of the entire project area."

In addition to these prospective targets, White Cliff has also found evidence of IOCG and epithermal-style mineralization in the southern half of the Great Bear Lake project, generating new priority targets. These include:

• Luv Lake: Located eight kilometers (five miles) northeast of the historic Terra silver mine, a three-kilometer-squared (1.2 square miles) IOCG target with historical rock chips that include 10.4% copper and 23 g/t silver.

• OMNI: Located 9.3 kilometers (5.8 miles) east of the Luv Lake target area, a quartz stockwork that hosts copper and gold; historical rock chips include 5.4% copper and 4 g/t gold.

• HD44: Located just five kilometers (3.1 miles) southwest of Terra, a polymetallic quartz-carbonate epithermal outcropping vein with historical rock chips that include 2.18% copper, 1.95% cobalt, and 22.26% bismuth.

"Integration of this historic data, coupled with observations and sample results from the upcoming field program alongside outputs from the MobileMT survey will provide a robust dataset for drill target definition," added Whittaker. "The diligent and exceptional work done by the team has allowed us to rank priority targets across the Great Bear Lake project which allows for efficient and appropriate provision of field works and capital allocation ahead of the 2024 season. Given the target rich environment, and different advancing stages of exploration across the project, the Company is now in an envious position where it can progress and develop a pipeline of targets."

White Cliff Minerals Ltd.

In addition to Radium Point, White Cliff recently acquired the high-grade Coppermine River project in Nunavut.

"Our desktop work relating to the digitization of Radium Point and Coppermine is ongoing and continues to demonstrate incredible potential," White Cliff Chairman Roderick McIllree said in April. "I, like the rest of the team looking forward with anticipation to the results of this year's field activities that are expected to continue until November."