North of 60 Mining News - August 13, 2024
White Cliff Minerals Ltd. Aug. 13 announced impressive copper-gold-silver-cobalt grades in the first batch of assays from the Australian company's inaugural exploration program at the Great Bear Lake iron ore-copper-gold-uranium (IOCG-U) project in Northwest Territories.
Lying about 280 miles (450 kilometers) north of Yellowknife, the capital of Northwest Territories, the 1,120-square-mile (2,900 square kilometers) Great Bear Lake property covers the historic Eldorado radium-uranium-silver-copper mine within Northwest Territories' highly prospective Great Bear Magmatic Zone.
The mill at Eldorado produced 13.7 million pounds of uranium oxide (U3O8), 34.2 million ounces of silver, 11.4 million lb of copper with gold credits, 104,000 kilograms of lead, 127,000 kilograms of nickel, and 227,000 kilograms of cobalt over a 50-year span beginning in 1932.
White Cliff began its exploration of Great Bear Lake with mapping, sampling, and geophysics to refine targets for drilling.
The first batch of assays from this program are from surface sampling at Phoenix, one of six project areas sampled.
The newly named Phoenix project area encompasses four previously identified targets – Cleaver IOCG, Glacier IOCG, Glacier Gold, and Rust.
Highlights from sampling a 1,100-meter intensely mineralized east-west structure at Glacier IOCG include:
• 42.6% copper, 2.28 grams per metric ton gold, 159 g/t silver, and 0.36% cobalt.
• 39.5% copper, 3.54 g/t gold, 181 g/t silver, and 0.23% cobalt.
• 39.5% copper, 2.28 g/t gold, 131 g/t silver, and 0.2% cobalt.
• 3.08% copper, 7.96 g/t gold, 310 g/t silver, and 0.16% cobalt.
• 5.7% copper, 1.87 g/t gold, and 96.7 g/t silver.
Highlights from sampling of a 785- by 460-meter epithermal alteration zone at Cleaver include:
• 6.31% copper, 0.47 g/t gold, 28.2 g/t silver, and 440 parts per million cobalt.
• 3% copper, 0.72 g/t gold, 249 g/t silver, and 888 ppm cobalt.
• 3.64% copper, 0.05 g/t gold, and 4.73 g/t silver.
• 2.78% copper, 0.36 g/t gold, and 25.7 g/t silver.
• 1.76% copper, 1.29 g/t gold, and 10.1 g/t silver.
Highlights from sampling a 215-meter-long north-south trending sulfide-rich quartz vein at Glacier Gold include:
• 4.16% copper, 38.2 g/t gold, and 76.5 g/t silver.
• 2.55% copper, 29.7 g/t gold, and 121 g/t silver.
"This initial batch of rock chip assays from Phoenix, the first project area to be sampled due to the proximity to the existing large airstrip at Great Bear, has delivered outstanding initial results," said White Cliff Minerals Managing Director Troy Whittaker. "Not only have we confirmed the historical results and sample locations, but we have expanded the area of known mineralisation at the project."
Assays from rock chip samples collected from five other areas of Great Bear Lake are expected to be released over the next few weeks.
"This remote and previously underexplored area has turned out to be a much larger metal rich hydrothermal system than previously thought," Whittaker added. "Historically seen as a series of sporadic high-grade results, this maiden mapping and sampling program has confirmed for the first time a continuity and significant lateral extent of the known mineralisation."
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