North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Stretching some 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) off Southwest Alaska into the Pacific Ocean, the Alaska Peninsula and trailing Aleutian Islands host among the oldest gold discoveries ever made in Alaska, yet it is the only island arc environment in the Pacific Ring of Fire without a major producing mine.

Though no mines are currently operating in this region rich with epithermal gold, and porphyry copper-gold mineralizing systems, the arc has a prominent entry in the annals of Alaska mining history. According to early 20th Century historian Charles Richard Tuttle, the Apollo deposit was likely the first economically viable gold discovery made in Alaska.

In a 1914 book titled "Alaska, its meaning to the world, its resources, its opportunities," Tuttle wrote, "From available data, it may be stated that the earliest discoveries of gold in Alaska, in anything like paying quantities, were made in widely scattered locations, and were quartz lodes, not placers. The Apollo Mine on Unga Island, off the western shores of Alaska, probably was the first of these discoveries."

During a 2002 visit to the local community of Sand Point, Mining News Editor Rose Ragsdale visited Unga Island and what remains of the legendary Apollo Mine.

"Unga Island offers breathtaking natural scenery, but abandoned buildings scattered across the lower elevations of a 170-square-mile expanse of sandy beaches, grasslands and rolling hills flanked by rugged cliffs give mute testament to the island's rich gold and coal mining history," Mining News Editor Rose Ragsdale reflects on this distant mining jurisdiction . "It is not surprising that this chillingly beautiful, but remote part of the world offers a potential treasure of sizable mineral deposits."

Full Metal Minerals Ltd. - which has an agreement with the Aleut Native Corp. to explore around 1.4 million acres of prospective Native-owned land on the Alaska Peninsula - is leading a charge of modern explorers in seeking sizable deposits of gold and copper in this largely overlooked area.

Pyramid and Unga-Popov - two projects near the community of Sand Point being explored by Full Metal and its partners - highlight the potential of this geologically active region of Southwest Alaska.

Return to Apollo

Redstar Gold Corp. - the most recent explorer to join the search on the Alaska Peninsula - is returning to the historical digs. Consolidating a group of patented claims that encompass the legendary Apollo Mine with a larger land-package held by Full Metal - Redstar launched a drill campaign aimed at building a high-grade gold deposit.

In May, Redstar acquired the Shumagin project from Kentucky-based NGAS Production Co., for US$2.85 million in cash and Redstar shares. (NGAS was subsequently bought out by Houston Texas-based Magnum Hunter Resources Corp.) This claim group is divided into two blocks of patented claims - one of which covers the Apollo Mine site which produced some 150,000 ounces of gold between 1891 and 1922; the other covers the parallel Shumagin Trend.

Following the May purchase of Shumagin, Redstar struck a deal with Full Metal to earn an initial 60 percent interest in its Unga-Popov property, a large claim group that covers the strike and down dip extension to at least three high-grade gold trends outlined on the patented claims.

Additionally, the large land-package under option from Full Metal blankets the Centennial deposit, a bulk tonnage target near the community of Sand Point on the neighboring Popov Island. Drilling conducted in the 1980s by Battle Mountain Gold outlined a historical resource of 6 million metric tons averaging 1.5 g/t at Centennial. While the resource is small, trenching and geophysics indicates the zone remains open in a number of directions.

Redstar President Scott Weekes said, "The acquisition of the Shumagin and Unga-Popov properties gives Redstar control of an emerging, high-grade epithermal gold-silver district which has been overlooked for the past 30 years, while we have seen the gold price quadruple. The Unga project represents tremendous exploration potential, as it's the first time the entire district has been consolidated under one operator for its integrated exploration and development."

The Shumagin property - which hosts three known parallel epithermal vein systems (Shumagin, Apollo and Norm) - has not been explored since the late 1980s. These parallel veins are within a mineralized trend that runs northeast for some 9,000 meters.

In 2000, SRK Consulting calculated a non-NI 43-101-compliant resource of 254,000 metric tons averaging 27.4 g/t gold and 127 g/t silver for the Shumagin vein.

While the Unga project provides Redstar with a number of exciting targets, the Vancouver B.C.-based explorer believes upgrading and expanding the gold-silver resource at the Shumagin vein provides the best balance of risk versus exploration potential.

The prospectivity of the Shumagin vein is highlighted by a historical hole, not included in the resource, drilled about 125 meters beneath this zone that cut 5.6 meters averaging 16 g/t gold. This vein extends at least 1,300 meters long, based on limited drilling along strike.

By mining the historical data, Redstar believes it can expand the resource at the Shumagin vein to as high as 800,000 metric tons containing 500,000 ounces of gold.

With a budget of C$2 million, Redstar is expecting to complete about 16 holes in 2011. The primary focus is to confirm and expand the current resource at the Shumagin vein and test parallel ore shoots.

All told, more than eight gold showings have been identified on the Unga-Popov property, including the Aguila vein system, which is about 8,000 meters along strike from the Shumagin vein. Aguila has been traced through trenching and drilling for more than 2,000 meters. The system is comprised of at least of three sub-parallel, near-vertical veins. Initial drilling in the early 1980s returned grades up to 113 grams per metric ton gold over 0.4 meters and 12 g/t gold over 2.74 meters. No follow up drilling has been completed under these high-grade intercepts. This is considered an important target for Redstar.

For 2012 Redstar's goals are to establish a year-round exploration camp and continue expanding known mineralization and identify new targets. The company anticipates that next year's budget for the project will exceed C$5 million.

Drilling expands Pyramid

Antofagasta Minerals S.A. and Full Metal recently completed their second season of drilling at Pyramid, a porphyry copper-gold project located on the Alaska Peninsula about 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Unga.

First explored in the mid-1970s, Pyramid hosts a historical resource of 125 million metric tons of near-surface ore averaging 0.403 percent copper and 0.025 percent molybdenum near-surface. Exploration by Battle Mountain Gold in the late 1980s identified associated gold values that have greatly improved the potential at Pyramid.

Antofagasta - which operates four copper mines in Chile's stretch of the Pacific Ring of Fire - is considered among the world's leading miners of porphyry deposits.

After finalizing an agreement that provides Antofagasta the right to earn a 51 percent interest in Pyramid by spending US$6 million on exploration there over four years - the newly forged partnership launched a 1,670-meter drill program late in the season.

This five-hole program both confirmed and expanded the mineralization outlined during the historical drilling at the deposit.

PY10-01, the first hole of the 2010 program, cut copper mineralization from bedrock at 32 meters to the bottom of the hole at 500 meters. This 467.6-meter intercept averaged 0.27 percent copper, 0.02 percent molybdenum, and 0.06 percent gold (0.41 percent copper-equivalent). The highest grade intersection of the 2010 program was made in PY 10-05. Starting at 6.4 meters this hole cut 194.8 meters grading 0.63 percent copper, 0.14 grams per metric ton gold and 0.02 percent molybdenum (0.82 percent copper equivalent).

Full Metal and Antofagasta followed up on the success of their 2010 exploration at Pyramid with a 2,575-meter drill program this year.

The best intercept of this year's 12-hole campaign was cut in hole PY11-016, which intersected 155.94 meters averaging 0.71 percent copper, 0.179 g/t gold and 0.018 percent molybdenum (0.97 percent copper equivalent). Not only was this the best intercept made by the partners to-date by Full Metal, it is also the most southeasterly hole of an 1,100-by-900-meter area of mineralization outlined by current and past drilling, suggesting the best part of this promising porphyry deposit may yet to be tapped.

Additionally, this hole was shut down in strong mineralization - with the final 7.94 meters averaging 0.78 percent copper, 0.124 g/t gold and 0.03 percent molybdenum - leaving the deposit open to downward expansion.

PY11-017 - drilled 60 meters northeast of the best hold of 2010, PY10-05 - cut 117.54 meters averaging 0.60 percent copper, 0.081 g/t gold and 0.024 percent molybdenum (0.81 percent copper-equivalent).

Other significant intercepts of the 2011 drill program include: PY11-07, which cut 104 meters averaging 0.72 percent copper-equivalent; PY11-010, which cut 310.29 meters averaging 0.53 percent copper-equivalent; PY11-012, which cut 208 meters averaging 0.54 percent copper-equivalent; and PY11-014, which cut 100 meters 0.76 percent copper-equivalent.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

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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