The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - August 30, 2024
Snowline Gold has expanded the known gold footprint at its Valley deposit with significant drill results, including 435 meters averaging 1.61 g/t gold, further solidifying the potential for resource expansion.
Simplified schematic geological map (left) and cross section (right) of the Jupiter target, showing the locations of six of the eight holes drilled to date in 2024.
Snowline Gold Corp. Aug. 29 announced the next batch of drill results from its 2024 exploration campaign at the company's Rogue and Einarson projects in Yukon, Canada, which not only expanded the known gold footprint at its Valley deposit but also delivered promising early results from the Jupiter target.
Holding seven prospective targets across the Yukon, Snowline's portfolio is split between its Rogue, Einarson, Ursa, Cynthia, and Olympus properties in the Selwyn Basin near Yukon's eastern border with Northwest Territories and the Tosh and Cliff projects closer to Yukon's western border with Alaska.
According to an inaugural resource calculation released in June, Valley hosts 76 million metric tons of indicated resources averaging 1.66 grams per metric ton (4.05 million ounces) gold, plus 81 million metric tons of inferred resources averaging 1.25 g/t (3.26 million oz) gold at a cut-off grade of 0.4 g/t gold – a total of 7.3 million ounces with significant potential for expansion.
Kicking off the 2024 season in late May, the company outlined plans for a 25,000-meter program that would see most of the work targeting Valley, with the balance assigned to an aggressive regional drill campaign to test other targets.
This included a 4,000-meter program at the Jupiter target on the Einarson property, which planned for follow-up drilling after high-grade orogenic gold mineralization was encountered in 2021. The remaining meters were spread across the Cynthia, Ursa, and Rogue properties, with a focus on expanding known mineralization and testing new, unexplored areas.
With the initial meters now completed, Snowline's latest results have not only expanded the footprint of the Valley deposit but also yielded promising new intersections at Jupiter, showcasing the potential of these targets to significantly enhance the company's resource base.
"We are pleased to advance our flagship district on multiple fronts," said Snowline Gold CEO Scott Berdahl. "At Valley, drilling continues to de-risk and potentially grow our initial mineral resource estimate with holes expanding the footprint of near surface, greater than 1 g/t gold mineralization."
So far, approximately 37 holes totaling 17,400 meters have been drilled at Valley. Trace instances of visible gold and widespread sheeted quartz vein arrays have been observed within and beyond the boundaries of the current initial mineral resource estimate.
The company is awaiting full assay results from the ongoing drill campaign to evaluate these observations' significance and their potential impact on the estimate.
Highlights from the most recent batch of assays from Valley drilling include:
• 435 meters averaging 1.61 g/t gold from a depth of 120 meters in hole V-24-77, including 150.5 meters averaging 2.39 g/t gold from 206.5 meters, with a subsection returning 20 meters averaging 7.62 g/t gold from 239 meters.
• 212.4 meters averaging 1.11 g/t gold from near-surface in V-24-076, including 66.9 meters averaging 2.02 g/t gold similarly from near-surface.
These results are anticipated to expand the current block model and increase the areas above the cut-off grade (0.4 g/t gold) and higher-grade domains. The full impact of these findings will be determined with the analysis of all upcoming drill results, which will be reflected in a future updated mineral resource estimate.
Simplified schematic geological map (left) and cross section (right) of the Jupiter target, showing the locations of six of the eight holes drilled to date in 2024.
The latest assays from Jupiter, including those from holes J-24-022 and J-24-023, revealed significant new intersections that expand the width and depth of the known mineralized system at the target. Notably, J-24-022 encountered multiple zones of mineralization, including 6.87 g/t gold over 6.3 meters.
"At Jupiter, our step-outs are hitting encouraging zones of gold mineralization within large areas of alteration and pathfinder minerals," said Berdahl. "Elsewhere, our regional exploration and drilling is ongoing, with drill results still pending from six regional targets outside of Valley this year."
Drilling has also been completed at the Sydney target on the Cynthia project, marking the first-ever drill testing of this recently identified reduced intrusion-related gold system (RIRGS) target.
Initial observations include widespread sheeted quartz veins with higher sulfide content than those at Valley, and instances of visible gold have been logged in two of the three holes drilled. Assays from all three holes are pending.
Snowline currently has two drill rigs active on regional targets: one focused on Rogue's Aurelius target and the other on the first-ever drill testing of Einarson's Avalanche Creek orogenic gold target. Assays are pending for over 8,100 meters drilled across regional targets outside of Valley, including four holes at Aurelius, three at Cujo, one at Reid, three at Sydney on the Cynthia project, six at Jupiter, and two at Avalanche Creek.
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