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

Northern Cobalt Ltd. (now Resolution Minerals Ltd.) Nov. 22 reported that the West Pogo access road has reached high-priority drill targets at Aurora Creek and a well is being drilled in preparation for a winter drill program slated to get underway by mid-February 2020.

West Pogo is one of nine blocks of state of Alaska mining claims Millrock Resources Inc. has acquired and staked in the Goodpaster Mining District. Together known as the 64North (formerly Goodpaster) project, these nine properties cover roughly 160,000 acres of land covering promising gold prospects in this district anchored by Northern Star Resources Ltd.'s Pogo Mine.

West Pogo is currently the most exciting of the nine properties, due to high-grade gold identified there and the large Goodpaster gold zone that Northern Star has traced to the border of West Pogo.

Highlights from Northern Star's drilling in the Goodpaster zone include: 2.1 meters of 44.5 grams per metric ton gold; 2.2 meters of 28.1 g/t gold; 0.6 meters of 100.1 g/t gold; and 0.3 meters of 170.2 g/t gold.

The stacked zones of high-grade gold mineralization in the Goodpaster zone appear to continue into the Aurora Creek area of the West Pogo property. Two lines of controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotellurics (CSAMT) geophysics, the same technique used to identify gold-bearing structures on the Pogo property, has detected a high conductivity geophysical response beneath the south side of Aurora Creek and along strike of Northern Star's Goodpaster discovery.

Millrock says this CSAMT conductor is coincident with a magnetic low – indicating gold-mineralizing fluids may have altered the rock – and is also associated with strong gold, arsenic and bismuth soil geochemical anomalies at surface.

The work at West Pogo captured the attention of Resolution Minerals, which cut a deal to earn up to a 60 percent interest in Millrock’s entire 64North project by investing US$20 million in exploration, plus paying US$200,000 in cash and issuing 38 million in Resolution shares to Millrock over four years.

As part of the agreement, Resolution made an initial US$250,000 payment to Millrock, which provides the Australian explorer exclusive rights to option 64North as it completes due diligence. This can be extended by 50 days for an additional US$250,000 payment.

Millrock, which is managing the 64North exploration, is using the up-front payments to build a roughly four-mile-long access road into West Pogo; drill a well near the high-priority drill sites ; and other work in preparation for the US$5 million exploration program planned to get underway during the first quarter of 2020.

While most mineral exploration projects in Interior Alaska shut down drilling during the cold months of winter, West Pogo has the advantage of having the state-owned industrial road to the Pogo Mine run through it. This makes it possible to push a drill road into the most prospective gold targets at West Pogo and drill a well there, providing the vehicle access and water needed to efficiently drill during the cold, dark months of winter.

“The unique logistical advantage we have with the all year access Pogo Gold Mine road through our project is a massive advantage over the usual helicopter hungry Alaskan projects,” said Resolution Minerals Managing Director Duncan Chessell.

In addition to establishing the infrastructure needed for winter drilling at West Pogo, crews have begun an extreme low frequency electromagnetic (ELF-EM) geophysical survey over the area successfully surveyed earlier this year with CSAMT geophysics.

ELF-EM is designed to image resistivity to depths of up to 2,000 meters and is a cost-effective alternative to other deep electromagnetic imaging techniques such as CSAMT, which typically require lines to be cut through trees and brush for the survey. Tests in the Yukon have shown that ELF-EM is comparable to CSAMT in intrusion related gold systems in very similar geological setting as West Pogo.

If the ELF-EM survey over the known CSAMT targets is successful, it will be used to infill the geophysics over the Aurora Creek prospects, which was crossed by two widely spaced CSAMT lines. This increased geophysical coverage will refine drill targets and increase the understanding of the geology of this gold target.

In addition to Aurora Creek, Resolution is excited about two other prospects on the West Pogo property – Echo and ER.

Echo, which is located about 10 miles north of Aurora Creek, has a similar geophysical and geochemical signature as the Goodpaster discovery on Northern Star’s Pogo property. One of lines of the CSAMT geophysical survey conducted earlier this year crossed Echo, showing a similar signature to Goodpaster discovery and Resolution believes this target could represent the northwest extension of the discovery on the Pogo property.

Chris Van Treeck, Millrock Resources Inc.

This well drilled at West Pogo earlier this month will provide water for a winter drill program in Aurora Creek valley that is currently expected to get underway in mid-February.

ER, which is about six miles west of Aurora Creek, appears to be a different style of gold mineralization that does not fit the typical “Pogo-style.” The zone does, however, show the high-grade gold Pogo is known for. One historical hole drilled there cut 0.1 meters of 373 g/t gold.

“It is typical to find variations of mineralization styles of IRGS (intrusion related gold systems) and Pogo-style mineralization is a unique subset of IRGS and it is important to not be fixated on one model,” Resolution wrote.

Core from historical drilling at ER has been recovered and moved to Fairbanks for logging and sampling.

With 64North shaping up to be the Aussie explorer's flagship property, Northern Cobalt shareholders approved changing the company name to Resolution Minerals Ltd. on Nov. 26.

–SHANE LASLEY

EDITOR’S NOTE: North of 60 Mining News previously reported that Northern Cobalt’s proposed new name was Great Northern Metals.