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

White Gold Corp. May 30 reported it has drills turning at White Gold and Betty, two of the Yukon-focused explorer's highest priority properties.

"This is a very exciting time for the company as we begin work on two of our top priorities," said White Gold Corp. CEO David D'Onofrio.

A resource calculated earlier this year for the White Gold property outlines 12.32 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.43 grams per metric ton (961,000 ounces) gold; plus 5.16 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.7 g/t (282,500 oz) gold in the Golden Saddle and Arc deposits.

GS Main, a high-grade core of the primary Golden Saddle deposit area, contains 832,000 oz gold in the indicated category averaging 2.96 g/t gold and 107,000 oz gold in the inferred category averaging 3.18 g/t gold.

The program on the White Gold property is beginning with reverse circulation (RC) drilling focused on expanding GS Main zone and testing the system at depth.

Initial drilling depths will range from 500 to 800 meters to test roughly 400 meters of down dip and down plunge potential beyond the current mineral resource.

Additionally, two to three shallow infill holes will be drilled in the current resource area for metallurgical testing purposes and three to four holes will test defined GS East geophysical targets on strike of the Golden Saddle.

Overall, the 2018 exploration program on the White Gold property will include 8,000 to 10,000 meters of diamond drilling (Golden Saddle, GS East and Arc); 6,000 to 8,000 meters of RC drilling (McKinnon, Donahue, Ryan's Showing, Arc and other targets as warranted); 5.8 line-kilometers of induced polarization-resistivity geophysics (Donahue and conceptual target areas); 300 bedrock-soil samples using a GT Probe designed by GroundTruth Exploration; and 3,000 soil samples.

White Gold Corp. also has a rotary air blast (RAB) drill testing Betty, an earlier staged gold exploration project adjacent to the eastern side of Goldcorp Inc.'s Coffee property.

The company said at least 10 known target areas occur at Betty over a 12-kilometer (7.5 miles) trend of anomalous gold in soils.

The highest priority gold targets at Betty are structurally-hosted, high-grade gold zones associated with the easterly extension of the Coffee Creek Fault Zone. This structure is a regionally important, first-order feature that appears to be a primary control on gold mineralization in the district. This Coffee Creek Fault Zone cuts through the central portion of the Betty property and is associated with a more than 4,000-meter-long gold-in-soil trend that defines the BW, White, Grable and Ford gold targets.

Additional gold targets at Betty that resemble "Golden Saddle mineralization" occur on the western portion of the property and include the Black and Red gold trends.

A third style of gold mineralization at Betty is present at the 3,500- by 2,500-meter Mascot trend and consists of intrusion related or epithermal style of gold typified by the presence of precious and base metal mineralization.

RC drilling completed in this area in 2012 cut 13.7 meters of 7.1 g/t gold and 209 g/t silver in the Page zone; 3.1 meters of 29.8 g/t gold in the Boop zone; and 21.3 meters of 1.5 g/t gold in the Davis zone.

The 2018 exploration program at Betty will focus on testing the White, Grable, Ford, and Black targets. Additional holes will follow up on the significant historical results in the Mascot trend area.

Overall, White Gold Corp. is planning to complete upwards of 3,000 meters of drilling in 25 to 30 holes at Betty this year, with the potential for additional drilling pending initial results.

A Lidar survey is also planned for the property to help advance the current geologic interpretation and aid with planning.

White Gold Corp. said drilling is scheduled to begin on two additional White Gold District exploration properties in the coming weeks.

"Our new discovery exploration pipeline is very robust and we are optimistic about the prospects of these undrilled and under-drilled targets," said D'Onofrio.

GroundTruth Exploration

White Gold Corp. plans to use a GT Probe to collect 300 bedrock-soil samples on its properties in the White Gold District.

Five rigs will be turning this season with the goal of completing 20,000 meters across six properties.

"In 2017 we performed extensive work on our regional portfolio in addition to the historical work performed to bring these targets to their current drill-ready state," the White Gold CEO added. "The drill programs have been meticulously planned leveraging updated geological models developed by our team through the utilization of new and innovative methodologies."

This year's work across the White Gold District marks the second season of the company's three-year regional exploration plan, which enjoys the financial and technical support of partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.

–SHANE LASLEY