The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - September 6, 2024
The exploration camp and high-grade copper deposit area at Caribou Dome.
PolarX Ltd. Sept. 3 announced that this year's drill program has cut exceptionally high-grade copper in deep zones at its Caribou Dome project in Alaska.
Lying just north of the Denali Highway about 160 miles (250 kilometers) northeast of Anchorage, PolarX's 22-mile-long Alaska Range project hosts Caribou Dome, a high-grade carbonate-hosted copper deposit, Zackly, a high-grade gold-copper-silver skarn deposit about 15 miles (24 kilometers) to the southwest, and several other projects across the wider land package.
According to a calculation completed in mid-2023, Caribou Dome hosts 7.2 million metric tons of measured, indicated, and inferred resources averaging 3.1% (224,375 metric tons) copper and 6.5 grams per metric ton (1.5 million oz) silver.
Zackly hosts an additional 4 million metric tons of indicated and inferred resources averaging 1.1% (45,000 metric tons) copper, 1.6 g/t (213,000 oz) gold, and 12.6 g/t (1.6 million oz) silver.
A scoping study completed in August outlined plans for a 750,000-metric-ton-per-year centralized mill developed next to Caribou Dome that is expected to produce 138,446 metric tons of copper, 102,577 oz of gold, and 1.46 million oz of silver over 9.5 years of mining.
The Alaska Range project has attracted the interest of Northern Star Resources Ltd., which underwrote a A$4.92 million (US$3.2 million) financing completed by PolarX in April and now owns a roughly 16% interest in the exploration company.
With this financing, PolarX is carrying out resource upgrade and expansion drilling at Caribou Dome.
The first batch of assay results confirms that this drilling has cut very high copper grades over significant widths. Highlights from the first three holes of the 2024 drill program at Caribou Dome include:
• 8.7 meters (6.1 meters estimated true thickness) averaging 4.3% copper and 10.5 g/t silver from a depth of 116.9 meters in hole CD24-002.
• 15.5 meters (10 meters estimated true thickness) averaging 7.4% copper and 21.4 g/t silver from a depth of 121.2 meters in hole CD24-003.
These holes cut a deeper fault offset extension of Lense 5 and Lens 6 encountered in CD21-001, a 2021 drill hole that cut 9.8 meters (6.5 meters estimated true thickness) averaging 6.8% copper and 7.8 g/t silver from a depth of 25.3 meters (Lense 6); and 19.1 meters (12.6 meters true thickness) averaging 7% copper and 11.2 g/t silver from a depth of 45.2 meters (Lense 5).
PolarX reports that holes CD24-004 and CD24-005 cut visible copper mineralization at a depth of about 80 meters and 130 meters, respectively, below the high-grade intercept in CD24-003. Assays are pending from these holes.
The company says its 2024 drill program has extended the depth and continuity of the very high-grade copper in Lenses 5 and 6, which will assist in future underground mine planning.
Samples from the program will also be used for additional metallurgical work.
CORRECTION: This article has been updated to correctly state that hole CD24-003 cut 15.5 meters (10 meters estimated true thickness) averaging 7.4% copper and 21.4 g/t silver. The previous version inadvertently stated 21.4 g/t gold instead of silver. Thank you Evan Twelker for bringing this mistake to our attention.
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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