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

Avidian Gold Corp. June 5 said a 2018 drill program is now underway at Golden Zone, with an initial focus on following up on the significant intercepts and "new discoveries" drilled during the 2017 program.

Located about midway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, the Golden Zone property hosts numerous gold targets along an 8,000-meter-long trend. Breccia Pipe, the most advanced of these, is a deposit with 4.19 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 drilled last year were 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. Avidian said this mineralization is open in all directions and represents a new stratigraphic target at Golden Zone.

Riverside, an occurrence south of Breccia Pipe, 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.

Avidian said the Riverside occurrence is associated with a quartz-feldspar porphyry that has been traced for more than 1,000 meters on surface.

The 2018 drill program will also begin testing other high-grade gold occurrence found along an 8,000-meter-long trend on the property.

Later in the season drills will test the Copper King prospect, where previous work has 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.

Grab samples collected by Avidian have returned assays with up to 6.9 g/t gold, 192 g/t silver, 9.5 percent copper, 7.2 percent zinc and 0.7 percent lead.

–SHANE LASLEY