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

Avidian Gold Corp. Jan. 15 said mapping and sampling at its Golden Zone project in Alaska has identified several high-grade gold occurrences and discovered a new mineralized breccia.

Located about midway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the Golden Zone property hosts numerous gold occurrences along an 8,000-meter-long trend. Breccia Pipe, the most advanced of these, is a deposit with 4.19 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.99 grams per metric ton (267,400 ounces) gold and 10.38 g/t (1.4 million oz) silver.

Avidian's 2017 work program included the compilation of historical exploration data; mapping and prospecting; trenching; rock and soil sampling; 43 line-kilometers of induced polarization geophysical surveying; and 2,578 meters of drilling.

Seven of the holes completed this year in the area of the Breccia Pipe resource.

Highlights from this drilling include 67 meters of 4.93 g/t gold; 70.6 meters of 2.03 g/t gold; and 28 meters of 2.19 g/t gold.

One hole drilled 300 meters northeast of the deposit cut 21.6 meters averaging 1.46 g/t gold.

In addition to expanding the resource, Avidian President and CEO Dino Titaro said the mineralization encountered in this hole "represents a new property-wide target for a replacement type deposit model."

Sampling along the Golden Zone corridor, which has been traced for more than 5,000 meters, discovered a new mineralized breccia approximately 500 meters west of the Breccia Pipe deposit. Grab samples from this discovery, known as Breccia Pipe West, returned values as high as 14.64 g/t gold and 355 g/t silver.

South of Breccia Pipe, the Riverside occurrence hosts some the highest gold values on the property, such as 177.5 g/t gold from a 0.3-meter-wide quartz-arsenopyrite vein and 1.49 meters of 34.6 g/t gold from a historical channel sample.

One hole drilled at Riverside last year cut multiple intercepts greater than 1 g/t gold, including a 3.4-meter section averaging 4.23 g/t gold.

Roughly 1,500 meters southwest of Riverside, Avidian encountered anomalous gold and high arsenic values while sampling hornblende porphyry body. The company said this area will require further follow up as gold mineralization on the property is generally associated with arsenic and this area is completely unexplored.

Avidian also sampled the Long Creek corridor, which parallels the Golden Zone corridor to the east. Gold and copper mineralization has been identified at the Copper King, Long Creek and South Long Creek occurrences along this 2,000-meter-long corridor.

At the Copper King prospect, the sampling identified semi-massive sulfide in a skarn. Historical trenching here has retuned 13.72 meters of 7.01 g/t gold, 94.1 g/t silver and 4 percent copper. A historical drill hole drilled through the skarn returned 7.62 meters of 4.94 g/t gold, 76.7 g/t silver and 3.52 percent copper.

Limited work has been conducted on the Long Creek and South Long Creek occurrences but Avidian said known mineralization is impressive with numerous high-grade gold, silver and base metal showings.

The mineralization at Long Creek, about 1,000 meters south of Copper King, is exposed along a river cut that runs perpendicular to the strike of the geology with high grade mineralized grab samples and historical trenches exposed along a strike length of at least 200 meters. Trenching here encountered 6.1 meters of 13.8 g/t gold, 34.4 g/t silver and 0.85 percent copper.

A grab sample collected at South Long Creek returned 11 g/t gold, 2,550 g/t silver, 0.24 percent copper, 14.3 percent lead and 2.54 percent zinc.

–SHANE LASLEY