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

Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. is a metals exploration company focused primarily on its Palmer volcanogenic massive sulfide project in Southeast Alaska.

Dowa Metals & Mining Co. Ltd., which joined Constantine in advancing exploration and potential development of Palmer in 2013, had invested US$20 million in advancing the VMS project through the end of 2016. This, along with US$2 million deposited into a joint venture account, earned the Tokyo-based smelting and mining company a 49 percent stake in the Palmer. Constantine owns the remaining 51 percent.

The roughly US$2 million of unspent earn-in funds was applied to Constantine's portion of a US$7 million exploration program carried out at Palmer this year.

Over the previous four years, Constantine and Dowa focused primarily on the expansion the South Wall-RW zone, a high-grade VMS deposit with 8.1 million metric tons of inferred resource grading 1.41 percent copper, 5.25 percent zinc, 0.32 grams per metric ton gold and 31.7 g/t silver, according to a resource calculated in 2015.

The 2017 program, the first under the newly formed JV, included both resource expansion at South Wall and discovery drilling across the wider Palmer property.

Resource expansion highlights include: 45.4 meters grading 2.5 percent copper, 7.4 percent zinc, 39 g/t silver and 0.3 g/t gold in hole CMR17-82; and 18.7 meters grading 2.3 percent copper, 6.9 percent zinc, 33 g/t silver and 0.3 g/t gold in hole CMR17-84.

Constantine said these, and other holes drilled in the area, dramatically increase the width and grade of mineralization along the western edge of South Wall.

The most exciting holes of the 2017 program, however, were drilled at Nunatak, a high-grade silver discovery about 3,000 meters south of the South Wall-RW deposit.

The Nunatak discovery hole, CMR17-89, cut 9.2 meters of massive barite-sulfide averaging 312 g/t (10 troy ounces per metric ton) silver and 0.9 g/t gold.

CMR17-92, drilled about 140 meters south of the discovery hole, cut 17.8 meters grading 11.7 percent zinc, 0.2 percent copper, 6.3 g/t silver and 0.2 g/t gold; and 6.7 meters averaging 5.7 percent zinc, 2.2 percent lead, 30 g/t silver, 0.2 g/t gold.

CMR17-94, drilled 50 meters from hole 92, cut 24.6 meters grading 260 g/t (8.3 ounces per ton) silver , 0.5 g/t gold, 1.4 percent zinc and 0.5 percent lead; including a 10.3-meter section averaging 461 g/t (14.7 opt) silver, 0.9 g/t gold, 2 percent zinc and 0.7 percent lead.

Jag, an outcrop on the opposite side of ridge about 400 meters southeast of Nunatak appears to be part of the same system. Surface samples taken from the surface at Jag returned grades of up to 537 g/t silver and 20 percent zinc.

Constantine said the Nunatak-Jag discovery confirms the potential for Palmer to host significant precious metal mineralization.

Given the early success, Constantine and Dowa expanded the originally planned 7,000-meter drill program at Palmer to 10,718 meters.