The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
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A hardener of the steels that have been helping to make Fords tough for more than a century and an element with unique properties that make it the key ingredient in enormous batteries to store intermittent wind- and solar-generated electricity, vanadium is a critical metal with many valences. It is vanadium's chemical valences that make this alloying metal an ideal ingredient in the redox flow batteries that scientists and governments see as the ideal large-scale storage... Full story
Though it is tough to distinguish the nearly identical properties of niobium and tantalum in nature, at the workplace, one of these critical twin metals typically dons a hardhat and boots to work in the construction and energy industries while you are more apt to find the other working in the high-tech sector. Their differences, however, are subtle, and their careers sometimes overlap. "The leading use of niobium is in the production of high-strength steel alloys used in pipel... Full story
"Please mine more nickel," these four words from Tesla CEO Elon Musk reverberated across the global mining sector and raised awareness of how fundamental nickel is to the lithium-ion batteries powering hundreds of millions of electric vehicles to come off Tesla and traditional automaker assembly lines over the next two decades. "Tesla will give you a giant contract for a long period of time if you mine nickel efficiently and in an environmentally sensitive way," Musk implored... Full story
From jewelry at a black-tie soiree to scrubbing harmful emissions from the exhaust system of a farm truck, the six platinum group metals – platinum, palladium, rhodium, ruthenium, iridium, and osmium – are metals that are both precious and critical to the United States and Canada. Extremely rare, durable, and with a brilliance that does not tarnish, platinum and other metals in its group are a treasured choice for high-end jewelry that stands the test of time. Three of the... Full story
The lightest of all the metals in the universe, lithium has emerged as the namesake for the batteries powering electric vehicles down global highways and storing renewable energy for those EVs to plug into. This is on top of the countless laptops, tablets, smartphones, wearable electronics, power tools, household appliances, electric bikes, scooters, toys, and the seemingly endless list of electric devices made possible by lithium-ion batteries. "Lithium consumption for... Full story
Reminiscent of America's gilded age, the world is priming itself for a new era of technology and energy centered on the electricity that sparked the imaginations of visionaries such as Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. This new era, however, sets aside more than a century of burning fossil fuels in favor of new clean sources of the electricity that will power human innovation into the 21st century and beyond. Solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal are but a few of the methods... Full story
Alaska's largely untapped mineral potential continues to draw the interest of Down Under mining companies, including two Australian minerals explorers that picked up prospective land packages open to staking. Earlier this month, Australia-based Ragusa Minerals Ltd. announced that it had acquired Monte Cristo, a block of 500 state mining claims covering a 35-mile-long (55 kilometers) under-explored stretch of Southcentral Alaska east and south of two projects with...
A prefeasibility study for developing a mine at Eskay Creek has confirmed what most have suspected – robust financial returns to the company that develops an open-pit mine at this historic gold-silver project in British Columbia's Golden Triangle. "Eskay Creek has a rare combination of attributes: scale, impressive grade and location in a tier one mining jurisdiction with strong First Nations support," said Walter Coles Jr., CEO of Skeena Resources Ltd., the company advancing...
From reinstating the Roadless Rule in the Tongass Forest to replacing the General Mining Law of 1872, federal regulations being proposed by President Joe Biden threaten to rain on a parade of strong metals prices, growing demand for critical minerals, and robust investments into mineral exploration and mining across Alaska. "We recommend Congress develop legislation to replace outdated mining laws including the General Mining Law (GML) of 1872 governing locatable minerals...
A new Australian company has entered the Alaska gold exploration scene with a deal to acquire Monte Cristo, a 125-square-mile (324 square kilometers) underexplored project in the Kahiltna Terrane area. Consisting of 500 state mining claims, Monte Cristo covers a 35-mile-long (55 kilometers) under-explored stretch of Southcentral Alaska east and south of two projects with multi-million-ounce gold resources – GoldMining Inc.'s Whistler gold-silver-copper project and Nova M...
From the Coast Mountains in the west to the lower parts of the Yukon's Boreal forest in the north, the Cassiar Mountain range in the east, and the headwaters of the Nass and Skeena Rivers in the south, an ancestral indigenous people known as Tahltans has called Northern British Columbia home for thousands of years. According to a 2003 sourcebook prepared by the Museum of Anthropology entitled "Mehodihi: Well-Known Traditions of Tahltan People," the Tahltan Nation, which... Full story
I always tend to look at the world through the wrong end of the telescope. For instance, many people regard the so-called political divisions in our country as being a problem, but for me, it is an expression of diversity. To be sure, Congress is divided, allegedly along "party" lines; however, the last time I checked, the Republican "party" is ensconced into two camps, which tend to vote together on most important issues. The Democrat "party" on the other hand consists of... Full story
Advancing at a pace not typically seen in the mining industry, Australia-based Vital Metals Ltd. has surpassed several milestones during the first quarter of 2021 toward its goal of producing rare earth oxides from its Nechalacho project in Northwest Territories by mid-year. "Vital Metals is on its way to becoming Canada's first rare earths producer – and only the second in North America – within weeks following the mobilization of our mining fleet and I look forward to kee...
Alaska, Northern British Columbia, and the Yukon are home to a dozen advanced stage exploration and mine projects hosting billions of pounds of copper ready to deliver to a world demanding massive amounts of this conductive metal for the green energy and electric mobility transition envisioned over the next three decades. In its report, "Copper is the new oil," Goldman Sachs forecasts that the electrification of transportation and decarbonization of electrical generation...
Heatherdale Resources Ltd. April 20 announced a significant change by renaming the company to Blackwolf Copper and Gold Ltd., which is now listed on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol BWCG. "Our name change to Blackwolf Copper and Gold better reflects the company's spirit and vision, particularly with consultation and inclusion with indigenous people," said Rob McLeod, president and CEO of Blackwolf Copper and Gold. "Growing up in the Pacific Northwest on the border of...
From a world-class graphite deposit in the Northwest to rare earths on the Southeast Panhandle, Alaska has the potential to offer a sustainable and secure supply to meet the coming explosive demand for the minerals and metals crucial to the renewable energy and electric vehicle sectors in North America and around the globe. International Finance Corporation, part of the World Bank Group, estimates that this shift to low-carbon energy and electric mobility will create nearly... Full story
As the historian Murray Morgan once observed, Seattle residents "tend to look on Alaska as their very own... Seattle stores display sub-arctic clothing, though Puget Sound winters are usually mild; Seattle curio shops feature totem poles, though no Puget Sound Indian ever carved one." This perception is possibly one of the largest legacies of the Klondike Gold Rush, which links Seattle and the Last Frontier in the public mind. Yet, the success and brotherhood shared between... Full story
Heatherdale Resources Ltd. March 16 announced the start of a drill program targeting the expansion of Lookout Zone, the largest deposit identified so far on the company's Niblack copper-gold-silver-zinc volcanogenic massive sulfide project in Southeast Alaska. According to a 2011 calculation, the Lookout deposit at Niblack host 5.64 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.95% (118.1 million pounds) copper, 1.75 grams per metric ton (317,220 ounces) gold, 29.5...
ATAC Resources Ltd. is focusing its 2021 mineral exploration program on the East Goldfield project in Nevada, a departure from more than a decade of primarily exploring its district-scale Rackla Gold property in the Yukon. Late last year, the Yukon government rejected ATAC's application to build a 65-kilometer (40 miles), private tote road that would have supported advanced exploration and potential mine development at Rau, the westernmost of three projects that make up the ex...
Alaska mines produced roughly $3.16 billion worth of non-fuel minerals during 2020, a slight increase over the $3.13 billion during 2019, according to Mineral Commodity Summaries 2021 published by the U.S. Geological Survey on Feb. 2 The rise in Alaska mine production value is largely due to higher gold output at Alaska's large mines and record setting prices for the precious metal last year. According to early estimates by the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical... Full story
Strong metal prices and an infusion of cash from notable resource investors helped to salvage much of a 2020 mineral exploration season in Alaska that became lethargic with disruptions, delays, and shelving of field programs infected by the COVID-19 pandemic early in the year. At its onset, 2020 was looking like it would be the best year for Alaska's mining sector in a decade. Australia-based mining companies were slated to invest nearly US$100 million in mineral exploration... Full story
For many mining companies eyeing prospects in Canada's far north, 2020 presented insurmountable challenges. But for the few explorers and producers focused on Northwest Territories, the year proved to be quite productive, even as a global coronavirus pandemic added expensive restrictions to already costly campaigns. Rigorous restrictions imposed by local and federal officials to quell potential outbreaks of the disease at mining camps and prevent its spread to local... Full story
"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair." I cannot help but to reflect on this famous opening passage in Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities when considering the dichotomy of mineral exploration across Alaska and Canada's North... Full story
When Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. acquired the Back River gold project in Canada's far north in 2009, the junior set out to tame a baby elephant. More than a decade later, the project has tripled in size and is still growing. Located in remote southwestern Nunavut in the Kitikmeot Region, the Back River Property is located some 520 kilometers northeast of Yellowknife, NT, and 95 kilometers (58 miles) southeast of Bathurst Inlet. The project is named for the nearby Back River,... Full story
Kinross Gold Corp. has rolled out a strategy to double gold production at its Fort Knox Mine by feeding higher grade ore into the underutilized 14-million-metric-ton-per-year mill at the open-pit operation about 20 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska. "We have enhanced our production profile, ramping up from approximately 200,000 ounces per year to approximately 400,000 ounces per year," Fort Knox General Manager Jeremy Brans told Mining News. While some of this new mill feedstoc... Full story
