The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – May 31, 2024
Blue Star plans to drill several high-potential targets in and around the high-grade gold deposits on its Ulu-Hood River project in Nunavut.
Blue Star Gold Corp. May 27 announced the start of a 2024 exploration program focused on further refining and drilling the top targets at the Ulu-Hood River and Roma projects, which cover a more than 45-kilometer (28 miles) stretch of the High Lake Greenstone Belt in Nunavut.
According to a 2015 calculation, the Flood and Gnu zones on the Ulu-Hood River project host 2.5 million metric tons of measured and indicated resources averaging 7.53 grams per metric ton (605,000 ounces) gold; and 1.26 million metric tons of inferred resource grading 5.57 g/t (226,000 oz) gold.
This year's program is focused on expanding this resource, testing high-potential gold exploration targets, and evaluating the critical minerals potential across its Nunavut projects.
The work begins with mapping, prospecting, and geophysical surveys to refine drill targets.
"Over the next few weeks our team will finalize preparation of several high-priority drill targets, with diamond drills scheduled to mobilize shortly after," said Blue Star Gold CEO Grant Ewing. "The emphasis of the upcoming drill program will be to evaluate high-potential gold targets that lie in close proximity to existing infrastructure, including the Mikigon and Central targets, and to assess our high-grade Flood deposit for resource expansion potential."
Having developed a deep pipeline of targets across its expansive property, Blue Star has ranked them based on scale, proximity to existing infrastructure, and resource potential.
The 2024 work at high-potential drill-ready targets at Ulu-Hood River include:
• This year's exploration at Flood Zone is focused on remodeled hanging wall drill intercepts that are not in the current resource model. These intercepts appear to form flat or hook veins in the hanging wall of the Flood Zone deposit. Drilling will assess this hypothesis and test a 50- by 100-meter gap in the current resource model.
• At the Central Zone, Blue Star is carrying out an induced polarization (IP) geophysical survey to highlight the structure and confirm the presence of a west-dipping zone parallel to the Flood Zone. The lithogeochemistry model will be used to highlight any structural breaks by confirming offsets of the different mafic units identified in 2023. This targeted structure hosts a 40.2-meter drill intercept averaging 0.73 g/t gold that is currently interpreted as an alteration halo parallel to the remodeled structure. Oriented drill core will be used to test this interpretation and follow the structure down-dip.
• The 200-meter-long Gnu Zone deposit lies within the 1,600-meter-long Nutaaq Trend. This year's exploration will test several targets across the longer Nutaaq Trend. This includes North Nutaaq, a 400-meter-long section where historical drilling has been remodeled based on the Gnu Zone knowledge. Historical drilling in the North Nutaaq area has cut strong gold mineralization, including o 6.6 meters averaging 3.5 g/t gold in hole 92VD145 and 2.4 meters of 4.69 g/t gold in hole 92VD146. A 600-meter-long section to the south, South Nutaaq, hosts overburden-covered geophysical signatures similar to those at the Gnu Zone. A more detailed IP survey will be used to refine these blind targets in advance of drilling.
• Mikigon, discovered by Blue Star's geological team in 2023, is a more than 500-meter-long coincident geophysical anomaly and alteration trend that returned numerous high-grade gold samples. Initial 2024 work will include detailed mapping and an IP survey along the trend and over potential parallel features. Results from the initial work will refine drill targets. No previous drilling has been conducted at this priority drill target.
The near drill-ready pipeline targets include:
• SouthZone-Twilight, which hosts a 500-meter-long alteration zone with a similar structural orientation as the Flood Zone that lies about 900 meters to the north. Initial work will focus on building the lithogeochemical model over this target to confirm offsets on lithological units, an indirect indicator of a major structure similar to that at the Flood Zone. This target will also be included at the southern end of the IP survey covering the Central Zone target.
• Rhonda is a gold-enriched critical mineral target about 1,000 meters south of SouthZone-Twilight that will be evaluated with a ground-based electromagnetic (EM) geophysical survey and drilling. The target area hosts massive sulfide outcrops with high zinc values that coincide with historical soil geochemistry and geophysical anomalies. Two similar showings, Interlake and Hunter, are located along the same stratigraphic horizon; no previous drilling has been conducted along this 2,000-meter-long target horizon.
• Zebra, which lies about 1,000 meters northwest of Gnu, is ready for some scout drilling to confirm the geological concepts and mineralization controls. Work programs in this geologically complex area are to assist in prioritizing drill sequencing for discovery.
• Blue Star also plans to evaluate several targets on the Roma property, which lies about 27 kilometers (17 miles) north of Ulu-Flood. HI01 Prospect, a disseminated-to-semi-massive sulfide zone with gold and zinc mineralization; potential extensions of the gold-enriched volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) North Zone deposit on the High Lake property immediately south of Roma; and the Marble Fold area, which exhibits a potential cap-rock unit to possible sulfide accumulation in the same stratigraphy as High Lake VMS deposit zones, are among the Roma near-drill-ready targets at Roma to be evaluated this year.
"We are excited to launch our 2024 exploration campaign," said Ewing.
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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