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

Atac Resources Ltd.'s 2016 program included work at both the Rau and Nadaleen trends on its Rackla gold project, an extensive land package that stretches roughly 185 kilometers (114 miles) east-west across central Yukon Territory.

At Rau, a 20-kilometer-long (12.5 miles) trend towards the western end of the Rackla project, Atac is focused on potential development of the Tiger oxide deposit and exploring similar targets in the area.

In May, the company reported an updated preliminary economic assessment for Tiger that investigates the use of an agitated tank carbon-in-pulp leaching process to recover gold from the highly oxidized material found there. The PEA estimates a mine at Tiger would produce roughly 302,300 ounces of gold in a six-year mine life from ore averaging 3.81 grams-per-metric-ton gold.

Estimated pre-production capital costs for this operation are C$109.4 million and life-of-mine sustaining capital costs are expected to be C$8.3 million.

Atac has applied for permits to build a 63-kilometer (43 miles) road to Tiger, which would branch off the Hanson Lake Road west of Keno City.

Atac kicked off its 2016 exploration at the Rau trend with geologic mapping, test pitting, trenching, soil sampling and prospecting at Airstrip, a large gold-in-soil anomaly discovered in 2015. Located about 4,000 meters south of Tiger, the Airstrip anomaly covers some 11.5 square kilometers (2,840 acres).

The initial evaluation program also included seven shallow rotary air blast drill holes at two priority targets at Airstrip. Near-surface gold mineralization was encountered at both of these sites, including one 13.7-meter intercept of 1.43 grams per metric ton gold in hole ASR-16-006.

Atac said the first-pass drill results are very encouraging at Airstrip and warrant further drilling.

The company also completed detailed prospecting at a previously underexplored gold-in-soil anomaly situated 125 meters from the southeastern limit of the proposed Tiger deposit pit.

Ten out of 21 oxide float composite grab samples collected over a 150-meter-long area upslope of the east end of the Tiger deposit returned values greater than one g/t gold, with the most notable sample returning 18.3 g/t.

"The recently identified oxide mineralization is a major development as this new area has potential to add oxide gold ounces directly adjacent to the eastern end of the proposed Tiger deposit open-pit," said Atac President and CEO Graham Downs.

At the Nadaleen trend, located about 90 kilometers (55 miles) east of Tiger, Atac followed up on the Orion target, where the 2015 discovery hole cut 47.24 meters of 3.79 g/t gold.

"RAB drilling in 2015 proved to be an effective tool for quickly and cost-effectively localizing the source of gold mineralization in bedrock. However, the volume of groundwater encountered in the 2016 RAB drilling was unexpected and the phase-1 RAB drill results are not considered to be either accurate or reliable," explained Atac Vice President of Exploration Julia Lane.

With too much water for the RAB drill, the company used a diamond drill to finish up the 2016 program at Orion.

The first hole of this program, a deeper twin to the discovery hole, cut 61.29 meters averaging 2.75 g/t gold.

Atac is a member of the Strategic Exploration Group, a collection of junior resource companies focused on exploring northwestern Canada. Members of the group enjoy a close working relationship with Archer, Cathro & Associates (1981) Ltd., a geological consulting firm with extensive knowledge and exploration expertise in the Yukon Territory and northern British Columbia.

-SHANE LASLEY