The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Affirms potential of more elusive structures revealed with lidar North of 60 Mining News – December 18, 2020
The first hole to drill into Elusive Vein at Grande Portage's Herbert Gold project cut 1.78 meters averaging 4.15 g/t gold.
Grande Portage Resources Ltd. Dec. 14 reports that drilling cut strong gold mineralization at Elusive, the southernmost of eight primary vein structures that have been confirmed at the company's Herbert Gold project in Southeast Alaska.
The Elusive Vein discovery hole, 20H-3, cut 1.78 meters averaging 4.15 grams per metric ton gold. This represents the confirmation of another gold-bearing structure 300 meters south of Deep Trench Vein, which was previously the southern limit of drilling.
A lidar survey commissioned by Grande Portage in 2018 revealed numerous topographic linear elements related to geologic features indicative of vein structures running across a roughly 5,000-acre area of the Herbert Gold property.
While Elusive only represented a subtle expression on the new topographic lidar maps, it was selected as a high priority target due to its parallel nature to the Goat, Main, and Deep Trench veins, as well as anomalous geochemical samples collected from the area.
Surface exploration in 2019 discovered two outcrops of the Elusive structure, which otherwise is deeply buried under colluvium and obscured by thick brush.
Grande Portage says the character of the mineralization encountered in hole 20H-3 is somewhat different than that seen in the other veins on the property, with the relative lack of quartz being the main difference.
Company geologists, however, consider it significant that the first hole to tap Elusive hit gold and that future drilling of this structure is warranted.
The Elusive Vein discovery hole also confirms the value of the lidar survey to the resource expansion and discovery drilling at Herbert Gold.
Grande Portage said previous topographic maps did not have the resolution to properly interpret many of the geological and topological features indicative of vein structures, but the new lidar maps have extremely high resolution, including the ability to process and penetrate through brush and tree cover of highly vegetated areas.
The company says mapping and interpretation of structures on the surface is important in order to understand the subsurface geology encountered in the drill holes and will serve as an aid in future resource calculations.
"This lidar survey has been invaluable," said Grande Portage Resources President Ian Klassen. "Not only did it precisely confirm known veins within the system, but it identified up to 16 new parallel structures within our property boundaries. We are delighted that the first ever drillhole into one of these structures has returned gold values. We look forward to further expanding our drilling efforts up to 300 meters to the south of our previous efforts."
In addition to the Elusive Vein intercept, the company reported that hole 20T-11 cut 3.11 meters averaging 18.29 g/t gold at Goat Vein.
Three roughly parallel vein structures at Herbert Gold – Goat, Main, and Deep Trench – host 1.88 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 10.03 g/t (605,000 ounces) gold; plus 553,429 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 14.15 g/t (251,700 oz) gold.
Grande Portage plans to continue expanding the Herbert Gold resource and testing new vein structures with a roughly 8,500-meter drill program in 2021.
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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