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

PolarX Ltd. July 24 reported that drilling at its Alaska Range project continues to cut stellar visible copper mineralization beyond the Zackly skarn deposit.

A 13-hole drill program carried out in 2017 upgraded the historical Zackly deposit to 3.4 million metric tons of JORC- (Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee) compliant inferred resource grading 1.2 percent (90.4 million pounds) copper, 2 grams per metric ton (213,000 oz) gold and 14 g/t (1.5 million oz) silver.

This year's up to 25-hole program at Alaska Range is focused on expanding the roughly 1,000-meter-long Zackly copper‐gold deposit along strike and to depth.

The latest copper mineralization encountered is a 9.6-meter section of magnetite skarn mineralization with visible copper sulfides in hole ZX-18023, drilled 350 meters east of the currently defined Zackly deposit.

This intercept is roughly 500 meters west of strong copper oxides encountered over 55 meters of ZX‐18020, the easternmost hole drilled so far at Zackly, and about 50 meters east of ZX‐18016, a hole that encountered visible gold.

In addition to the holes drilled to the east of the deposit, one hole, ZX‐18018, cut strong visible copper and gold mineralization roughly 100 meters below the resource.

If ongoing drilling can trace this mineralization back to the 1,000-meter-long high-grade gold and copper deposit already outlined at Zackly, this would mark a major expansion of the resource the company recently upgraded to modern standards and go a long way toward supporting the Australia-based exploration company's strategy of building a sufficient copper‐gold inventory at Alaska Range to support a feasibility study.

Besides Zackly, the Alaska Range project hosts Caribou Dome, a high-grade copper deposit about 12.5 miles to the east that could support an independent mine, or something that is developed in conjunction with Zackly.

Caribou Dome hosts 1.6 million metric tons of JORC-compliant resource (measured, indicated and inferred) averaging 3 percent (107.8 million lb) copper that is amenable to open-pit mining; and 1.2 million metric tons of underground mineable resource averaging 3.2 percent (82.3 million lb) copper.

This year's drilling, however, is focused on the obvious expansion potential at Zackly.

PolarX Ltd.

Beyond expanding the resource, as the drills step out to the east they are vectoring toward a potentially deeper and larger porphyry target that is indicated by a prominent magnetic anomaly at Zackly SE, which lies about 2,000 meters southeast of the current resource.

While visible gold and the obvious copper mineralization seen in core is positive signs for resource expansion, PolarX cautions that these observations do not replace actual assay results from a lab, which are currently pending.

As of July 24, seven holes for roughly 1,100 meters of drilling have been completed at Alaska Range and another two holes were underway – one testing further depth extensions of the Zackly resource and the second testing the eastern extension of the deposit.

Assay results from all 2018 drilling are pending.

–SHANE LASLEY