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

Grande Portage Resources Ltd. May 7 announced a significant expansion of resources at its high-grade Herbert Gold project in Southeast Alaska.

Herbert Gold now hosts 1.88 million metric tons of indicated resource average 10.03 grams per metric ton (605,000 ounces) of gold. This is more than double the 267,950 oz of gold reporting to the indicated category in a resource calculated for the Juneau area gold project in 2018.

In addition, Herbert Gold hosts 553,429 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 14.15 g/t (251,700 oz) gold. This is a more than threefold increased over the 82,200 oz of gold in the inferred category last year.

"We are extremely pleased to release the revised independent resource estimate for the Herbert Gold property, the result of a very diligent effort on the part of the company's exploration team," said Grande Portage Resources President and CEO Ian Klassen.

While last year's drilling resulted in a sizeable increase in the tonnage included in both resource categories, another important contributor was a substantial increase in grade.

"We are very impressed with not only the increase in the indicated and inferred categories but the overall grade of the resource continues to improve too," said Klassen.

The average grade of the 2019 indicated resource is about 42 percent higher than the 7.25 g/t gold average last year and the average grade of the current inferred resource is more than double the 6.04 g/t gold average in 2018.

This is largely due to the high-grade gold Grande Portage tapped when drilling the Goat Vein during the 2018 drill program at Herbert Gold.

The Goat Vein is the single largest contributor to both resource categories, both in terms of tonnage and grade.

Goat Vein now hosts 435,900 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 19.82 g/t (277,790 oz) gold; and 325,300 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 21.03 g/t (219,920 oz) gold.

So far, Grande Portage has identified five parallel gold-rich veins at Herbert Gold – Floyd, Deep Trench, Main, Goat and North.

These veins are found within a 1,000-meter section of a prospective 4,600-meter trend.

Results from a LiDAR (light detection and ranging) survey late last year identified 16 additional parallel and sub-parallel prospective structures in an area that extends more than 1,400 meters to the southeast and 400 meters to the northwest of the drilled veins.

"We are confident that we will continue to significantly expand the resource as we further identify and drill test the prolific nature of this mesothermal vein deposit," said Klassen.

–SHANE LASLEY