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

Auryn Resources Inc. June 4 said it has identified two new gold-silver targets at Homestake Ridge, a high-grade gold property about 20 miles (32 kilometers) southeast of Stewart, British Columbia.

The new targets are roughly 6 miles (10 kilometers) northeast and 2.2 miles (3.5 kilometers) south of the three main deposits at Homestake Ridge – Homestake, Homestake Silver and South Reef.

Combined, these deposits host 604,000 metric tons of indicated resource averaging 6.4 grams per metric ton (124,000 ounces) gold, 48.3 g/t (939,000 oz) silver and 0.18 percent (2.4 million pounds) copper; plus 6.77 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 4.2 g/t (911,000 oz) gold, 93.6 g/t (20.37 million oz) silver and 0.11 percent (16.3 million lb) copper.

Rock samples collected last year from the new northern target, which Auryn is calling Bria, returned assays of up to 11g/t gold and 448 g/t silver. Auryn said the results from sampling demonstrates the high-grade prospectivity of this target area at the northern end of the Homestake Ridge property.

The company believes the mineralized veins that were sampled are leakage structures from potential mineralized bodies associated with mapped intrusive rocks in the area.

At the new southern target, Kombi, two separate high-priority areas have been defined from consecutive drainage basins where historical stream sediments were anomalous in gold and silver.

One of these areas is defined by a 2,000-meter trend of gold-in-stream sediments within multiple adjoining drainage basins, demonstrating peak values of 0.91 g/t gold. This continuous trend of gold over multiple catchment areas coincides geologically with the Betty Creek Formation that also hosts the defined Homestake Ridge deposits to the north.

The second high-priority area at Kombi has been identified through stream sediment samples from adjoining drainage basins that define a 1,000-meter trend at the southern limit of the Homestake Ridge property. The anomalies are defined by strong gold, silver, copper, antimony and arsenic responses that coincide with the Stuhini group formation, which hosts the former producing high-grade Snip mine that produced roughly 1 million ounces of gold from ore that averaged roughly 27.5 g/t gold.

"In an effort to make a bigger exploration impact at Homestake Ridge we looked away from the known resources and successfully identified two, new large-scale gold and silver opportunities," said Auryn Resources Executive Chairman Ivan Bebek. "These targets are in areas that have seen modest previous exploration and importantly contain high-grade and demonstrate the potential for substantial mineralization."

Auryn has budgeted C$700,000 for follow-up surface work at Homestake during the third quarter. This program is expected to include geologic mapping, rock sampling and ground geophysical surveys at the newly defined targets.

The company hopes this work will refine targets for future drilling on these new Homestake Ridge prospects.

–SHANE LASLEY