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

Golden Predator Mining Corp. Oct. 13 reported higher than expected gold grades were encountered in several metallurgical and geotechnical holes drilled this year at Brewery Creek, a former producing heap-leach gold operation about 55 kilometers (34 miles) east of Dawson City, Yukon.

Three metallurgical holes and one geotechnical hole at the Lucky deposit cut gold mineralization below the historical pit floors.

Hole 11 cut 8.2 meters grading 21.3 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 22.2 meters at the western end of the Lucky pit; hole 31 cut 17.5 meters of 5.5 g/t gold from a depth of 9.9 meters at the north side of the Lucky pit floor; and hole 25 cut 5.6 meters of 5.2 g/t gold from a depth of 21.2 meters at the eastern edge of the Lucky pit.

"We are very pleased with the results of our 2016 drill program at Brewery Creek, it demonstrates the potential for higher gold grades, and shows that significant amounts of oxide material remains in the old pits," said Golden Predator CEO Janet Lee-Sheriff.

The metallurgical program at Brewery Creek consisted of twelve large diameter core holes - five at Lucky, five at Kokanee and two at Golden.

The oxide material gathered from these holes will test for higher gold recoveries from oxide material after crushing versus the gold recoveries from un-crushed run-of-mine material by the former operator.

The metallurgical holes also collected high-grade sulfide material, which will be tested for gold recovery using carbon-in-leach and flotation methods.

This will be the first metallurgical testing of any non-oxide material at Brewery since preliminary testing in the late 1990s.

Another eleven geotechnical and groundwater holes were drilled at the project.

Golden Predator said the results may provide information for an updated preliminary economic assessment update for Brewery Creek.

-SHANE LASLEY