Sampling uncovers gold and copper enriched skarn at Birch project, mapping and geophysics will enable strategic drilling for 2025.

Yukon Metals Corp. Oct. 16 announced the latest results from its ongoing exploration program at the Birch project in Yukon, with impressive values of copper and gold, including rock-chip samples returning up to 2.42% copper and 6.64 grams per metric ton gold.

In June, Yukon Metals solidified its position in Canada's westernmost territory by acquiring an approximately 18,000-hectare (44,480 acres) portfolio of mineral exploration properties identified and assembled by the Berdahl family over three decades of prospecting.

The 16 properties picked up by Yukon Metals – AZ, Barite Mountain, Birch, Carter Gulch, Clea, Eva, Expo, Faro North, Fox, Gem, Nut, Pete, Risby, Star River, Talbot, and Venus – host a suite of precious metals and critical minerals, including antimony, arsenic, barite, bismuth, copper, gold, molybdenum, silver, tin, tungsten, and zinc.

Among its expansive portfolio, Yukon Metals chose to focus its initial exploration efforts on select properties, with Birch being one of the first. Situated approximately 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Burwash Landing and Destruction Bay and roughly 260 kilometers (162 miles) west of Whitehorse, the 2,285-hectare (5,646 acres) Birch project is easily accessible via helicopter from nearby roads along the Alaska Highway.

Initial exploration at Birch began in August, with the team focusing on a systematic soil sampling and prospecting program across a 1,400-meter-long copper and gold anomaly in the northern section of the property.

Map of the copper-in-soil samples gathered from Birch in a 50-by-100-meter grid.

A total of 530 soil samples were collected on a 50-by-100 -meter grid, with early assays returning up to 0.99 g/t gold and 2,310 parts per million (0.23%) copper. Additionally, rock-chip samples revealed impressive results, including as much as 14.1 g/t gold and 4,260 ppm (0.43%) copper.

Continuing its exploration at Birch, Yukon Metals expanded its sampling program, adding 434 more samples across the northern and central portions of the property.

In total, assays from 964 samples confirmed encouraging copper, gold, and molybdenum values, highlighting a significant east-west trending zone. Rock-chip float samples from the eastern portion returned up to 2.42% copper and 0.94 g/t gold, pointing to further exploration potential within the mapped skarn system along limestone-marble outcrops.

"These additional geochemical results have reinforced the potential of the project to host a gold rich copper porphyry system," said Yukon Metals President and CEO Rory Quinn. "The positive identification of skarn mineralization fits well within the exploration model that we are developing for the Birch project. Once the new geophysical data is integrated with our mapped geology and geochemical data sets we will be able to design first pass drilling of the optimal targets scheduled for spring of 2025."

In addition to the soil sampling and rock-chip results, Yukon Metals has completed a shallow electrical resistivity and induced polarization geophysical survey over the anomalous northern zone to better define bedrock structure and rock type.

Results from this survey are currently being processed, and the company plans to integrate this geophysical data with geological mapping and geochemical data to finalize the optimal drill targets for a first-pass drill program scheduled for spring 2025.