Mining Explorers 2020 - Published January 19, 2021
White Rock Minerals Ltd. focused its 2020 exploration in Alaska on a potentially large gold system at Last Chance, a large target toward the western end of the Australian mineral explorer's Red Mountain property in Alaska.
While Red Mountain is best known for its zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide deposits and occurrences, this 308-square-mile (798 square kilometers) property about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Fairbanks lies within the Tintina Gold Belt, a particularly gold-rich province that sweeps across Canada's Yukon and Alaska.
A detailed regional stream sediment program completed in 2019 led to the discovery of Last Chance, a gold prospect at the west end of this district-scale land package.
To better understand the gold mineralization at Last Chance and refine targets for a drill program that got underway in August, geologists completed soil sampling across the target.
This sampling identified a roughly 3,550- by 500-meter core within the larger Last Chance target. The most intense zone of gold and arsenic anomalism extends from Sidewinder West, a prospect area at about the center of the Last Chance core, about 2,000 meters southwest to the Pickle prospect.
Two soil samples from Sidewinder West returned 2.2 g/t and 7.1 g/t gold.
One rock chip sample collected from a narrow quartz vein southwest of Sidewinder West, an area known as SW Blowout, contained 77.3 g/t gold. Two rock chip samples collected at Pickle returned assays of 2.11 g/t and 1.05 g/t gold, and samples from the Double Down prospect, about 500 meters south of Sidewinder West, contained 2.77 g/t and 1.16 g/t gold.
White Rock reported that some of the quartz veins sampled also contained very strong silver, including 3,150 and 1,625 g/t silver.
The eight holes drilled during the 2020 season tested four Last Chance targets – Pickle, Sidewinder West, Sidewinder Blowout, and Double Down.
While assays are pending at the time of this report, White Rock reports that the most visually encouraging intercept is a roughly 56-meter interval of quartz veining in hole LC20-06, drilled at Sidewinder Blowout.
To gain a better three-dimensional understanding of the Last Chance core area, White Rock completed four lines of CSAMT (controlled-source audio-frequency magnetotellurics) over the gold target. The company says the data from this survey, combined with drilling, sampling, mapping and other data collected will provide a quality interpretation of this overall gold system and help refine targets for drilling in 2021.
The two VMS deposits toward the eastern end of the Red Mountain property – Dry Creek and West Tundra Flats – host 9.1 million metric tons of Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee- (JORC) compliant inferred resource averaging 5.8% (1.17 billion pounds) zinc; 2.6% (516 million lb) lead; 0.1% (26.5 million lb) copper; 157 grams per metric ton (46.1 million ounces) silver; and 0.9 g/t (260,000 oz) gold.
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