New Age Metals Inc. July 25 announced the start of a 2019 exploration program focused on mapping hydrothermal alteration to better define drill targets on its Genesis platinum group metals-nickel-cobalt project in Southcentral Alaska.

Situated along the Richardson Highway about 75 highway miles north of the deep-water port city of Valdez, Genesis is an under-explored palladium-platinum-nickel-copper property with great infrastructure.

Previous sampling at Sheep Hill, one of the targets identified on the 10,240-acre Genesis property, returned up to 2.4 grams per metric ton palladium, 2.4 g/t platinum, 0.96 percent nickel and 0.58 percent copper.

A 40-meter-thick mineralized reef at this prospect has been traced for 850 meters along surface and is open in several directions.

The property also hosts a separate style of chromite mineralization containing up to 2.5 g/t palladium and 2.8 g/t platinum.

While surface PGM mineralization has been identified over a 9,000-meter stretch of Genesis, no drilling has ever been carried out on this project that is less than two miles from a paved highway and an electric transmission line.

New Age Metals Chairman and CEO Harry Barr told Mining News that this ease of access, superb infrastructure – along with the PGE-nickel-copper mineralization right at surface – makes Genesis the type of property that major mining companies are looking for.

To further refine drill targets on this Southcentral Alaska property, Fairbanks-based Avalon Development Corp., is carrying out a three-phase program for New Age this year.

The summer 2019 field program on Genesis is intended to map hydrothermal alteration to better define drill targets on the project and will involve three phases of work.

This program will start with ASTER (advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer) processing and interpretation to map potential alteration targets to assist district-scale PGM-copper-nickel sulfide exploration. The end goal of this phase is to generate three false color images, which is expected to better delineate alteration targets, as they show up distinctively as color anomalies.

The second phase will involve the processing and interpretation of NASA Landsat TM (thematic mapper) imagery.

Landsat TM is an advanced, multispectral scanning, Earth resources sensor designed to achieve higher image resolution, sharper spectral separation, improved geometric fidelity and greater radiometric accuracy and resolution than previous sensors.

Using data generated from Landsat, New Age plans to generate a 30-meter true-color image to aid visual interpretation of the iron-oxide targets at Genesis.

Finally, the 2019 program will involve the reprocessing and re-interpretation of magnetic, electromagnetic (EM) and induced polarization (IP) geophysical surveys carried out on the property.

Avalon Development Corp.

Situated just east of the Richardson Highway and electrical power running to the deep-water port city of Valdez, which is about 75 miles further south, the Genesis palladium-platinum-nickel-copper project has the benefit of great infrastructure.

This includes the reprocessing of state of Alaska airborne magnetic data in 2D and 3D formats to outline chromite-bearing PGM accumulations and identify structural domains; state airborne EM data in 2D and 3D formats to outline PGM-nickel-copper sulfide conductors and identify structural domains; and limited ground IP program completed over the Sheep Hill prospect area to better define structural details and target PGM-nickel-copper sulfide-bearing horizons.

–SHANE LASLEY