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The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News - November 15, 2024
The exploration camp at PolarX's Caribou Dome copper project in Alaska.
PolarX Ltd. Nov. 13 reported that the final two holes of the 2024 drill program further extended the high-grade copper mineralization at the Caribou Dome deposit on its district-scale Alaska Range project in Southcentral 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 published by the company in August outlines 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 (305.2 million pounds) of copper, 102,577 oz of gold, and 1.46 million oz of silver over 9.5 years of mining.
PolarX's 2024 drilling is focused on upgrading and expanding the high-grade copper mineralization at Caribou Dome as it continues to advance toward feasibility-level mine studies for Alaska Range.
In September, the company reported results from two holes drilled this year intercepted 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).
Highlights from the first batch of 2024 drill results 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.
The final two holes of the 2024 program traced the high-grade Lense 5 copper mineralization further down-dip.
Highlights from the final two 2024 holes include:
• 20.5 meters (14.5 meters estimated true thickness) averaging 1.7% copper and 2.5 g/t silver from a depth of 212.8 meters in hole DC24-004.
• 11.6 meters (6.9 meters estimated true thickness) averaging 1.8% copper and 2.1 g/t silver from a depth of 257 meters in hole CD24-005.
With the results from these holes, PolarX has traced the outcropping Lense 5 to a depth of 300 meters, and the high-grade copper mineralization remains open at depth.
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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