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

Riversgold Ltd. July 9 said it has begun a seven-week exploration program that is expected to include drilling at several targets on its gold properties in Southwest Alaska.

A Perth-based mineral exploration company that listed on the Australia Stock Exchange late in 2017, Riversgold owns three gold exploration properties – Luna-Quicksilver, Kisa and Gemuk – that blanket 27,122 acres of the Kuskokwim Mountains about 95 miles southwest of the 39-million-ounce Donlin Gold Mine project.

These properties lie at the southwest end of the Tintina Gold Belt, a 125- by 750-mile gold-enriched province that arcs from northern British Columbia, through Southwest Alaska. Bounded by the Tintina-Kaltag fault on the north and the Denali-Fairwell fault systems on the south, the large Donlin Gold, Livengood, Fort Knox and Pogo gold deposits are found in the Alaska section of this province.

Riversgold Managing Director Allan Kelly believes the company's Southwest Alaska projects host significant potential for the discovery of a large multi-million-ounce gold deposit such as those found elsewhere within the Tintina Gold Province.

"Our projects have all the classic signatures of a large intrusion related gold system, like the giant Donlin Creek deposit to the north but, apart from the Kisa Breccia target, have never been drilled," he said.

To refine targets for drilling at some of the other gold targets, this year's program is starting off with induced polarization (IP) geophysical and surface sampling surveys at the Luna, Luna East, Qucksilver and Kisa prospect areas of the Luna-Quicksilver property, which blankets along a splay fault off the Tintina Gold Belt-bounding Denali-Farwell Fault.

Outcropping high-grade gold and polymetallic mineralization has been identified along this structure but has never been drilled.

"We are especially excited about the first ever drilling campaign at Luna-Quicksilver, where high-grade gold mineralization is present at several places along the 40-kilometer (25 miles) long North Fork Fault," said Kelly.

Rock chip samples from Quicksilver have returned up to 37.6 grams per metric ton gold and 58 g/t silver; and chip samples from Luna, about 4,500 meters southwest of Quicksilver, returned up to 64.7 g/t gold and 74 g/t silver.

Riversgold also plans to drill at least one of the large magnetic anomalies adjacent to the North Fork Pluton, an area north of Quicksilver where the company sees the potential for high-grade gold-copper skarn mineralization similar to the high-grade Nixon Fork gold-copper deposit.

The roughly 1,000-meter drill program is expected to also further test Kisa, the only prospect on Riversgold's property with previous drilling.

In February, Riversgold announced that it has staked 52 state mining claims over the Gemuk Mountain, a prospective property about three miles northeast of Luna-Quicksilver where historic rock chip samples returned up to 100 g/t gold along with stibnite (antimony) mineralization.

Riversgold Ltd.

Surface sampling slated for this year will investigate the extent of this high-grade gold-stibnite mineralization at Gemuk Mountain.

Kelly, who has been exploring this region for more than two decades, hopes this exploration will lead to the large gold deposits Southwest Alaska is now famed for.

"I have personally been involved with these projects since 1997, when I was part of the team that discovered outcropping high-grade gold mineralization at Quicksilver," he said. "In that time, Donlin Creek has grown from a potential 2 million-ounce prospect to a 45 million-ounce world-class gold project, highlighting the significant potential of this region."

Riversgold's 2018 Alaska field campaign is slated for completion by mid-August.

–SHANE LASLEY