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

Primarily associated with cans, cups and roofs, tin is not the flashiest metal on the market. Despite its lowly ranking, even among base metals, this lackluster commodity fetches around US$8.00 per pound - substantially more than copper, zinc, lead, or even nickel - and Alaska has plenty of it.

Strongbow Exploration Inc., a company primarily focused on exploring for nickel in Northwest Territories, is working on a deal that would allow it to acquire two Alaska tin properties - Sleitat and Coal Creek.

The transaction, if finalized, would involve Strongbow buying Thor Gold Alaska Inc., a privately held Alaska company which holds the tin properties, from Osisko Gold Royalties Ltd. and Strongbow Director Ronald Netolitzky.

Netolitzky has been involved with Thor Gold, a former subsidiary of Solomon Resources Ltd., since the 1980s. Osisko acquired an interest in the Sleitat and Coal Creek properties through the 2010 purchase of Brett Resources Inc., a former explorer of the two Alaska tin projects.

Strongbow has agreed to buy Thor Gold by issuing 5 million shares to Osisko and 1.5 million shares to Netolitzky. Additionally, the royalty company would hold a 1.75 percent net smelter return royalty on the tin claims and the director would hold a 0.25 percent NSR.

"The Coal Creek and Sleitat tin properties represent two significant North American tin prospects," said Strongbow President and CEO Ken Armstrong. "As part of the agreement with Osisko, Strongbow will be able to draw upon the experience and expertise of Osisko's technical team as it continues to seek new projects."

Alongside it purchase of Thor Gold, Strongbow is working on raising C$1 million to fund exploration of the Alaska tin properties. The company originally planned a private placement financing of C$500,000, a minimum requirement of the deal, but quickly announced that the financing would be about double what it previously anticipated.

Sleitat

The Sleitat tin property consists of 3,520 acres of state mining claims located in Southwest Alaska, roughly 85 miles northeast of Dillingham and about the same distance northwest of Pebble.

Tin was discovered on the property during a 1983 regional exploration program carried out by Cominco American Inc. and Enstar Resources Corp. The companies followed up on this discovery with an exploration program that included 723.8 meters of drilling that tapped a granite intrusion hosting cassiterite, a tin oxide mineral.

In 1989, the U.S. Bureau of Mines estimated the Sleitat prospect to contain 25.9 million tons at average grades of 0.22 percent to 0.37 percent tin, 0.04 percent tungsten and 17 grams per metric ton silver.

Solomon Resources staked Sleitat after Cominco walked away from the property in 2003.

To earn an 80 percent interest in the tin prospect, Brett Resources carried out exploration at Sleitat in 2006 that included a 702.5-meter drill program that confirmed and expanded the work completed by Cominco.

Despite this most recent work, a mineral resource that meets Canadian National Instrument 43-101 standards has yet to be calculated for Sleitat.

Solomon Resources was 100 percent owner of Thor Gold Alaska until transferred to Netolitzky in 2013.

Coal Creek

The 2,400-acre Coal Creek property lies west of the Parks Highway roughly halfway between Anchorage and Fairbanks.

Discovered by Charles Hawley in 1972, Coal Creek was staked for its tin-silver potential by Houston Oil and Minerals in 1980. Over the ensuing five years, this exploration company carried out a comprehensive work program that included 5,240 meters of drilling in 42 holes.

A preliminary resource calculated for Houston Oil and Minerals in 1982, estimated the drilled portion of the Coal Creek deposit contained roughly 4.4 million metric tons averaging 0.27 percent tin, according to data published by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Like Sleitat, Brett Resources drilled Coal Creek during the summer of 2006. Highlights include: 9.4 meters averaging 0.41 percent tin, 18.21 g/t silver and 0.81 percent zinc; and 9.3 meters averaging 0.45 percent tin, 11.95 g/t silver and 0.29 percent zinc.

Tungsten and gold also have been identified at Coal Creek. Choice grab samples collected from the property in 1990 turned up 720 g/t tungsten, 65 g/t silver, 0.5 g/t gold and 4.86 percent zinc.

Also like Sleitat, the resource calculated for Coal Creek does not meet the rigor of NI 43-101 standards.

13 tin prospects

With at least 13 prospects identified across its expanse, Alaska has long been known for its tin potential. In fact, the prospect of mining this base metal led to the establishment of Tin City, a small mining town about 90 miles northwest of Nome, in 1902.

While Tin City and the mines it hoped to support were short-lived, this area near the western tip of the Alaska Peninsula is still known for its rich tin deposits.

Placer mining of Cape Creek, which drains the mountain that was to be mined by Tin City founders, produced an estimated 3.3 million pounds of tin, according to the USGS. The largest known chunk of cassiterite recovered during placer mining of Cape Creek weighed 142 lbs.

It is believed that the highest grade placer tin deposits were mined from Cape Creek in the 1970s and 1980s.

Other tin prospects found near Cape Mountain include Lost River and Potato Mountain.

Like the tin deposits on the Seward Peninsula, Coal Creek has tin-bearing neighbors.

One such prospect, Ohio Creek, also was discovered by Hawley. Located just northwest of Coal Creek, this property has yielded a wide variety of minerals and metals, including: wodginite, a manganese-tin-niobium oxide; tungsten; gold; silver; palladium; and a suite of rare earths.

A study completed by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in the 1980s found that the tin-bearing Ohio Creek pluton also carries rare earths as well as other critical and strategic elements.

As part of Alaska's Strategic and Critical Minerals Assessment project, the Alaska Division of Geological & Geophysical Surveys re-analyzed rock samples from the earlier study. A report published by DGGS in 2014 confirms that the Ohio Creek prospect does contain a wide suite of precious, base, strategic and critical metals.

Brett Resources staked the Ohio Creek property in 2006, and Osiko Mining continues to hold 11 claims covering the prospect.

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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