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

White Gold Corp. June 19 announced the start of a 17,000-meter core drill program on three of its properties in the Yukon – JP Ross, White Gold and QV.

"The goal of this diamond drill program is threefold: to continue to expand Golden Saddle-Arc's established resources, to follow up on JP Ross's exciting high-grade Vertigo discovery last season and to grow the recently acquired and underexplored VG deposit," said White Gold Corp. CEO David D'Onofrio.

The diamond core drilling on these three is a central component of a C$13 million 2019 exploration program backed by partners Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd. and Kinross Gold Corp.

"We have also commenced the regional exploration program across our extensive land package, focused on generating a strong pipeline of discoveries and resource growth," D'Onofrio added.

High-grade Vertigo

At 10,000 meters, the bulk of this year's core drilling will target Vertigo, an exciting high-grade gold discovery made at JP Ross, a road accessible property roughly 60 kilometers (37 miles) southeast of Dawson City, Yukon.

After confirming high-grade bedrock gold with a GT Probe, a track-mounted rig designed by Dawson City-based GroundTruth Exploration to take samples from the soil-bedrock interface, White Gold Corp. quickly ramped up drilling at Vertigo last year.

The Vertigo discovery hole, JPRVERRAB18-001, cut 3.05 meters of 56.25 grams per metric ton gold from a depth of 3.05 meters, part of a 10.67-meter intercept averaging 17.34 g/t gold.

Results from the other rotary air blast holes that initially tested this target include:

• 3.05 meters of 45 g/t gold starting at a depth of 1.52 meters in hole JPRVERRAB18-011, part of 15.2-meter intercept that averaged 9.65 g/t gold; and

• 24.38 meters of 23.44 g/t gold from surface in JPRVERRAB18-014.

Follow-up reverse circulation drilling confirmed and expanded the high-grade gold tapped by RAB drilling, highlights include:

• 82.3 meters of 3.21 g/t gold, which includes 1.52 meters of 103.9 g/t gold and 400 g/t silver from surface in hole JPRVERRC18-006;

• 6.1 meters of 14.23 g/t gold, which includes 3.05 meters of 38.56 g/t gold from surface in JPRVERRC18-009; and

• 6.1 meters of 18.59 g/t gold and 188.8 g/t silver from a depth of 24.38 meters, and 4.57 meters of 6.82 g/t gold from a depth of 44.2 meters in JPRVERRC18-013.

Surface grab samples of 304.3 g/t, 156.2 g/t,139.9 g/t, 134.6 g/t and 132.9 g/t gold have been collected over a 685-meter stretch at Vertigo.

By the end of the 2018 season, White Gold Corp. had identified at least 12 mineralized structures over a 2,200- by 650-meter trend at Vertigo.

The 10,000-meter initial phase of 2019 core drilling at Vertigo is focused on evaluating the geometry as well as the lateral and vertical continuity of the high-grade mineralized structures discovered in 2018.

Expanding Golden Saddle

Another 6,000 meters of this year's core drilling program will focus on further expansion of the deposits on the White Gold property.

Earlier this month, the company reported a 25 percent increase in the amount of gold resources in the Golden Saddle and Arc deposits at White Gold.

Combined, these two adjacent deposits now host 14.33 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 2.26 grams per metric ton (1.04 million ounces) gold; and 10.7 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.48 g/t (508,700 oz) gold.

Roughly 86 percent of this resource is within three northeast-trending zones that make up the Golden Saddle deposit – GS Main, GS Footwall and GS West.

GS West, a zone that lies roughly 750 meters west of the main Golden Saddle deposit, was a major contributor to the expanded resource and is seen as an important expansion target at White Gold.

"The newly discovered GS West is part of the same mineralized system as the Golden Saddle, all of which we believe can be expanded with additional drilling," said D'Onofrio.

This year's core drilling at White Gold will focus on expansion of the GS West zone, both along strike and down-dip. This drilling will primarily target the gap between GS West and GS Main, an area that has been sparsely tested so far.

Drilling will also be conducted on the GS Main and GS Footwall and will focus on infilling gaps in the current model, particularly the high-grade core.

The core drilling at Arc, a smaller deposit about 400 meters south of Golden Saddle, will focus on resource expansion along strike and infill drilling to evaluate continuity on higher grade areas within the model.

The company said additional drilling may be carried out on some of the other targets that have been identified on the White Gold property.

Seeking more VG

The remaining 1,000 meters of White Gold Corp.'s 2019 core drilling program will target extensions of VG, a deposit on the QV property acquired earlier this year from Comstock Metals Ltd.

Located directly across the Yukon River on the north side of the White Gold property, the VG deposit hosts 4.4 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.65 g/t (230,000 oz) gold.

With only 17 holes included in this resource, this deposit remains underexplored and remains open along strike and to depth. This will be the target of this year's drilling.

White Gold Corp.

In addition to VG, the 16,335-hectare (40,000 acres) QV property hosts several prospects that share characteristics similar to the Golden Saddle deposit to the south and the Vertigo target about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) to the northeast.

To gain a better understanding of QV's wider potential, White Gold Corp. is also planning to carry out LiDAR surveys; GT Probe and soil sampling; geophysics; and geologic mapping across this newly acquired property in 2019.

"The recently acquired VG deposit will undergo drilling to expand the known resources and we will be applying our proprietary regional exploration program to advance some of our other priority targets," White Gold Corp. Chief Technical Advisor Shawn Ryan said earlier this year.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.

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