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

PolarX Limited March 20 reported that the Zackly deposit at its Alaska Range project hosts 90.8 million pounds of copper, 213,000 ounces of gold and 1.5 million oz of silver in a resource compliant with Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee (JORC) mineral reporting standards, a code for reporting mineral resources and ore reserves similar to National Instrument 43-101 standards in Canada.

A historical resource for Zackly was calculated at 1.54 million metric tons grading 4.5 g/t (218,944 oz) gold and 2.9 percent (66.9 million lb) copper.

A 13-hole drill program carried out last year by Millrock Resources Inc., an Alaska-based exploration company that owns a 10.74 percent interest in PolarX, succeeded in expanding upon this historical estimate and elevating it to modern reporting standards.

"The fact that we have readily upgraded the resource to JORC standard while maintaining the same quantity of contained metal further underpins our confidence in the potential to significantly expand the project," said PolarX Managing Director Frazer Tabeart. "Even more importantly, we have confirmed our view of the regional geological setting, which supports our belief in the immense exploration upside."

This maiden JORC-compliant inferred resource encompasses 3.4 million metric tons grading 1.2 percent copper, 2 grams per metric ton gold and 14 g/t silver from surface. It remains clearly open for extension along strike and at depth.

Zackly is just one of several deposits and prospects at the Alaska Range project, an extensive land package that blankets roughly 22 miles (35 kilometers) of copper and gold mineralization.

Last year, Coventry published the first modern resource for the sediment-hosted copper deposit at Caribou Dome, which is about 12.5 miles (20 kilometers) southwest of Stellar.

The total JORC-compliant resource (measured, indicated and inferred) for Caribou Dome includes 1.6 million metric tons of near-surface material averaging 3 percent (107.8 million lb) copper; and 1.2 million metric tons of underground mineable resource averaging 3.2 percent (82.3 million lbs.) copper.

PolarX has also identified similar geology at several other large prospects within the project area, with high-grade outcropping copper and gold in rock samples at established and yet to be drilled porphyry targets.

Kyle Negri, Courtesy of Millrock Resource Inc.

Geologist Chris Brown investigates the Mars prospect on the Alaska Range copper-gold project in Alaska.

The Australia-based exploration company said there is ample evidence that a mineralized structural corridor that runs 6,000 meters west from Zackly to the Mars prospect may host several buried porphyry copper-gold deposits, including underneath Mars and Zackly.

"There is now overwhelming evidence that the style of mineralization and the geological setting is entirely consistent with the presence of large systems which can host truly world-class copper-gold porphyry intrusions," said Tabeart.

PolarX said this prospective corridor is a high priority exploration target within the Alaska Range Project.

The company is currently finalizing plans for its 2018 exploration and drilling programs aimed at expanding Zackly and Caribou Dome deposits, as well as investigating Mars, Moonwalk and other prospects across the Alaska Range project.

Drilling is slated to begin by early summer.

–SHANE LASLEY