An alliance formed nearly two years ago between Evrim Resources Corp. and a Newmont Mining Corp. subsidiary may be paying off for the busy junior, given Newmont's recent decision to designate for option a promising gold project that the duo identified in western Northwest Territories.

The alliance focused on a 23,250-square-kilometer (8,975 square miles) prospective land package that parallels the NWT-Yukon Territory border in hopes of finding world-class carbonate-style gold deposits in the area.

The quest resulted in the acquisition of the Astro project, a 250-square-kilometer (96.5-square miles) expanse located six kilometers (3.72 miles) north of the Mile 222 airstrip and 195 kilometers (121 miles) northeast of Ross River, Yukon. The Canol Road provides seasonal road access to the southern boundary of this emerging gold property.

Evrim is a junior mining company focused on generating early stage gold, silver and copper projects in western Canada and Mexico. Evrim also owns a geological database covering parts of Mexico and western United States.

The junior reported in March that Newmont FN Holdings ULC has designated the Astro project for option under the terms of an exploration alliance that was signed in 2017 with Evrim Exploration Canada. The alliance has identified a 9.5-kilometer- (5.89 miles) long gold anomaly on the property.

The Astro project is situated on the western margin of the Mackenzie Platform, a Devonian to Permian basin filled with predominantly carbonate strata, near the Yukon and Northwest Territories border. The basin was uplifted and deformed prior to intrusion by felsic plutons, including the Cretaceous Tombstone suite, Mayo Suite and Tungsten suites.

"The Astro project is the result of a successful two-year, US$1.8 million generative alliance with Newmont that demonstrates the synergies of Evrim's generative exploration expertise and Newmont's proprietary exploration technologies," said Evrim Resources President and CEO Paddy Nicol.

Under terms of the alliance, Newmont may elect to earn an 80 percent interest in a designated project by making staged cash payments totaling US$600,000 to Evrim and solely funding exploration until it has defined a NI 43-101-compliant pre-feasibility study on a minimum 2-million-ounce gold resource, over a 10-year period. Evrim will be the operator for the initial US$5 million in exploration spending.

The junior may then elect to form a joint venture with Newmont on a respective 20-80 basis, whereby Evrim can maintain its equity interest in the project or elect to have Newmont fund a positive NI 43-101 compliant feasibility study and reduce Evrim's equity interest to 15 percent. Thereafter, Evrim may elect to contribute its pro-rata share of adopted programs and budgets or convert to a 2 percent net smelter return royalty, of which 0.5 percent may be repurchased by Newmont for US$10 million.

Pooling expertise delivers results

The designation of the Astro project by Newmont met the alliance's original goal of generating quality greenfield targets in terranes favorable for large-scale gold deposits, according to Nicol.

The alliance used government datasets from Yukon Territory and Northwest Territories to generate conceptual targets for Carlin-style, sedimentary gold deposits and applied Newmont's proprietary Bulk Leach Extractable Gold (BLEG) technique over the 23,250-square-kilometer (8,975 square miles) alliance area. The exploration programs included 1,046 stream sediment samples, 400 rock chip samples, 2,300 soil samples, detailed mapping, and staking of 891 square kilometers (344 square miles) of claims.

Nicol said the project is located within the traditional territory of the Sahtu Dene and Metis Comprehensive Land Claim and that both Evrim and Newmont "are committed to developing a positive and mutually beneficial relationship based on respect and transparency" with the First Nations.

Several gold targets at Astro

The alliance identified the 9.5 kilometer- (5.9 miles) long north-northwest trending corridor of gold anomalism within the Astro project with limited surface soil and rock chip sampling of gossans at the Radio and Microwave prospects.

Evrim said the corridor is a structurally complex area with stacked thrust sheets of Pre-Cambrian to Devonian sediments (including sandstone, siltstone and lime mudstones) intruded by the Border and Mehitabel felsic intrusions. To date, the intrusions appear to have limited prospectivity; however, the hornfelsed eastern margin includes gossans at the Radio and Microwave prospects and gold in soil anomalies that form additional targets. Soil anomalism is asymmetric with gold, copper, lead, and arsenic located west of pathfinder element anomalies, in particular, antimony and mercury that extend further east into non-hornfelsed calcareous mudstone units. A younger set of steep, north-northwest trending faults cut the thrusted units and intrusions. These faults appear to control emplacement of both fresh to strongly altered mafic dykes and gossan zones.

The Radio prospect hosts an approximate 20-meter-by-25-meter zone of gossan adjacent to a fault hosted in a siltstone unit with minor calcareous layers. A continuous set of chip samples were collected across the zone that returned an open-ended intersection of 18 meters grading 11.6 grams per metric ton gold, including six meters grading 32.1 g/t gold. Mineralization occurs with elevated bismuth and copper in a magnetite and pyrite skarn assemblage.

The Microwave prospect, located five kilometers (three miles) southeast of the Radio prospect, hosts a stratabound zone of mineralization in shallowly-dipping siltstones. This prospect was sampled by two sets of continuous chip samples located roughly 40 meters apart. The first set of chip samples returned 7.5 meters grading 4.68 g/t gold, including three meters grading 6.73 g/t gold and the second set of chip samples, taken some 40 meters farther east, returned 11 meters grading 2.25 g/t gold.

A stream sediment anomaly located about 700 meters upstream from the Microwave prospect has the same tenor as a second stream sediment anomaly, located 500 meters downstream from the prospect, indicating the potential for a significantly longer strike extent than currently defined.

The mineralized intersections at the Radio and Microwave prospects are open along strike in both directions.

Plans for 2019 exploration

This summer Newmont and Evrim aim to conduct a US$1.2 million exploration and drilling program at Astro.

"The permitting process is well underway, and we look forward to the engagement of the local community within the Sahtu region," Nicol reported in a March 6 statement.

Evrim said it received a grant of C$183,000 from the Government of Northwest Territories, which partly offset the cost of the generative exploration

Evrim Resources Corp.

The Astro project is on the western margin of the Mackenzie Platform, an area of western Northwest Territories that has the potential for Carlin-type gold deposits such as those discovered in neighboring Yukon.

The junior also reported that it allocated resources in 2018 to generate new projects in Canada and Mexico. Targeting focused on epithermal gold-silver and porphyry copper targets in Mexico and on porphyry copper-gold projects in British Columbia. As of the end of 2018, 32 projects were reviewed, and six site visits were undertaken. Due diligence and sampling are underway on the recommended projects. Favorable results could lead to the acquisition of new projects that the company hopes to advance to the joint venture stage.