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

Auryn Resources Inc. July 9 said it plans to begin a 10,000-meter drill program at its nearly 1-million-acre (390,000 hectares) Committee Bay gold property in Nunavut on July 15. The 6,000 meters of diamond drilling and 4,000 meters of rotary air blast (RAB) drilling planned for this year will follow up on the 2017 Aiviq discovery, as well as exploration drilling at five prospects – Kalulik, Tulugaq, Aarluk, Castle Pebble and Koffy – identified through a high resolution till sampling program completed last year.

Till is sediment derived from the erosion caused by glaciers that can provide clues to the mineral content of the bedrock from which it eroded.

"We are very excited about this year's drill program as we will be following up on three years of extensive exploration, a new high-grade discovery at our Aiviq prospect that we made last year and five additional targets," said Auryn Executive Chairman Ivan Bebek.

The expansive property is anchored by Three Bluffs, a deposit with 2.1 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 7.85 grams per metric ton (524,000 ounces) gold; and 2.9 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 7.64 g/t (720,000 oz) gold.

Roughly half of the drilling currently slated for this year will target Aiviq, a high-grade gold discovery made last year about 7.5 miles (12 kilometers) north of Three Bluffs.

The gold identified at Aiviq is situated along a regional shear zone that is defined by a 7,000-meter-long gold-in-till anomaly.

One hole drilled at the Aiviq discovery last year, 17RGR003, cut 12.2 meters of 4.7 g/t gold, including 3.05 meters of 18.09 g/t gold.

About 3,200 meters of the drilling planned for Aviq will step-out from this discovery and test the depth of mineralization. Additionally, the company will carry out about 1,800 meters of RAB exploration drilling with three fences across the shear zone to the northeast.

The balance of the RAB drilling will be divided between the other five prospects – 1,800 meters at Kalulik; 1,200 meters at Aarluk; 800 meters at Castle Pebble; 600 meters at Tulugaq; and 600 meters at Koffy. The company said the distribution of drilling could change with observations made during the program.

In addition to drilling, this year's exploration at Committee Bay will include further high-resolution till sampling planned for the West Plains and Anuri prospects, both of which have historical high-grade drill intercepts. The aim of this surface work is to continue to develop the next series of drill targets as the company's technical team believes these prospects have excellent potential for a major discovery.

Auryn Resources Inc.

Regional till sampling on wider spacing will be carried out to the northeast of the Inuk prospect to determine the potential for additional discoveries in the northeast portion of the Committee Bay greenstone belt.

As well as Committee Bay, Auryn's portfolio includes the Gibson MacQuoid gold property in Nunavut; high-grade Homestake Ridge gold-silver property in northwestern British Columbia; and a portfolio of gold, silver and copper properties in Peru.

"Our portfolio of projects once again becomes live with drilling for potential high-grade gold discoveries in Canada while we are continuously receiving new results from our Sombrero project in Peru," said Bebek.

–SHANE LASLEY