The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - September 11, 2024
Tectonic Metals 2024 drill program at Flat is following up on higher-grade corridors identified during its 2023 inaugural drill program on this gold project in Southwest Alaska.
Tectonic Metals Inc. Sept. 11 announced the start of a 2024 drill program that will target higher-grade corridors identified at Flat and test exploration targets across the roughly 99,000-acre gold project in Southwest Alaska.
"We are pleased to commence the 2024 exploration program at our flagship Flat project and test the results of our ongoing compilation and interpretive work based on the application of modern exploration models and technologies, which has resulted in the generation of a suite of high quality, intrusion-related gold targets," said Tectonic Metals Vice President of Exploration Peter Kleespies.
Located about 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of the world-class Donlin Gold project, Flat includes a large land package leased from Doyon Ltd. and a smaller package of optioned and staked claims that cover three potential intrusions that are on-trend and show similarities to gold-enriched Chicken Mountain intrusion on Doyon land.
Approximately 1.4 million ounces of placer gold have been dug from streams draining the area around Flat.
Previous exploration, including 55 historical holes and 19 completed by Tectonic in 2019, has outlined a roughly 4,000-meter-long and up to 600-meter-wide gold-in-soil anomaly within a larger intrusion at Chicken Mountain that begins at surface and remains open along strike and at depth.
Tectonic says that all 74 holes historically drilled along a 1,800-meter section of the Chicken Mountain have cut gold mineralization to a depth of 300 meters, with mineralization remaining open in all directions.
This year's drilling at Chicken Mountain will target higher-grade corridors within thick zones of bulk tonnage mineralization that were identified by drilling last year.
Highlights from the 2023 program include:
• 423.2 meters averaging 0.41 grams per metric ton of gold from a depth of 5.4 meters in hole CMD23-001, including 37.3 meters averaging 1.02 g/t gold.
• 344.6 meters averaging 0.36 g/t gold from a depth of 4.3 in hole CMD23-002, including 36.4 meters averaging 1.22 g/t gold.
• 88.9 meters averaging 0.6 g/t gold from a depth of 1.5 meters in hole CMR23-001, including 22.9 meters averaging 1.12 g/t gold.
Tectonic also plans to drill at the Adit-Happy structure, which hosts a 2,000-meter-long gold-in-soil anomaly that intersects the Chicken Mountain Structure.
Tectonic says Adit appears to be the primary source of roughly 200,000 oz of placer gold historically mined from streams at the western end of the structure.
Historical drilling and trenching, mostly within a 200-meter section of the Adit structure, revealed grades as high as 4.57 g/t gold over seven meters and 3.75 g/t over 12.2 meters along the structure.
Tectonic tested Adit with several holes during its 2023 program. Hole CMR23-008, which was drilled 150 meters southeast of the historically tested area, cut 24.4 meters averaging 1.08 g/t gold; and CMR23-012, which was drilled 350 meters further southeast, cut 24.4 meters averaging 1 g/t gold.
This year's drilling at Adit will include a series of holes along the 1,000-meter core of the structure and test the interpreted intersection with the Chicken Mountain structure.
The 2024 drill program at Flat will also include exploration drilling at Alpha Bowl, a previously un-drilled bowl-shaped depression that is a northern extension of the Chicken Mountain intrusion complex, and Golden Apex, a large intrusion target that parallels Chicken Mountain and lies about 1,000 meters to the north.
"We are especially excited to begin the inaugural exploratory drilling on potential buried intrusions at the Golden Apex Target and the extension of the Chicken Mountain Intrusion at the Alpha Bowl Target, both of which have received very limited past work despite over 50 years of exploration history at Flat," said Kleespies.
Tectonic expects initial assays from its 2024 program at Flat to begin rolling in by the end of October.
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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