The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - September 20, 2024
Core samples from drilling carried out by Tectonic were used for metallurgical work to test the potential of heap leach gold recovery at Flat.
Tectonic Metals Inc. Sept. 19 reported that recent metallurgical testing demonstrates the potential for high gold recoveries from a low-cost run-of-mine heap leach operation at its Flat project in Southwest Alaska.
"Our initial heap leach results mark a major milestone for the Flat Gold Project, a bulk-tonnage gold system showing continued strong geological similarities to Kinross Gold's Fort Knox Mine," said Tectonic President and CEO Tony Reda.
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.
While a modern resource has yet to be calculated, the company reports 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.
Even at this early stage, Tectonic has invested in understanding the metallurgy and gold recovery options of the gold mineralization being outlined at Flat.
"In just two years of exploration at Flat, we have performed an extensive range of metallurgical tests – including heap leach column, conventional bottle roll, gravity separation, combined gravity and bottle roll, and flotation," said Reda. "These tests are crucial for evaluating and optimizing mining processing methods and de-risking the project as we advance it towards a viable economic mining opportunity."
Wanting to assess the potential for establishing a low-cost heap leach operation at Flat, the latest metallurgical work completed for Tectonic involved heap leach column tests. Testing of coarse (three-quarters inch) material consisting of both oxidized and non-oxidized drill core returned gold recoveries of 96% and 91%.
"These metallurgical results underscore the potential for a cost-effective, large-scale mining operation in a stable jurisdiction, further establishing the Flat Project as a key asset in Tectonic's portfolio and the broader mining industry," Reda added.
The company says the gold at Flat is fracture-controlled, enabling efficient leach solution access and faster gold recovery even on coarse material. This style of gold mineralization is well-suited for heap leaching, presenting a cost-effective extraction opportunity, particularly if uncrushed run-of-mine material is amenable to heap leaching as it is at Fort Knox.
"Crushing and grinding typically are the largest capital cost and significant consumers of power at an operating mine, and therefore, the most expensive operational cost significantly impacting a mine's all-in sustaining costs," the Tectonic Metals CEO said. "With that in mind, we are now more than ever excited to explore the potential for run-of-mine heap leaching, similar to the Fort Knox Mine."
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.
Reader Comments(0)