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

Heatherdale Resources Ltd. March 16 announced the start of a drill program targeting the expansion of Lookout Zone, the largest deposit identified so far on the company's Niblack copper-gold-silver-zinc volcanogenic massive sulfide project in Southeast Alaska.

According to a 2011 calculation, the Lookout deposit at Niblack host 5.64 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.95% (118.1 million pounds) copper, 1.75 grams per metric ton (317,220 ounces) gold, 29.5 g/t (5.35 million oz) silver, and 1.73% (215 million lb) zinc; plus 2.37 million metric tons of inferred resource at 0.73% (38.1 million lb) copper, 1.42 g/t (108,202 oz) gold, 21.6 g/t (1.65 million oz) silver and 1.17% (61.1 million lb) zinc.

"We are excited to get drilling underway from the production sized underground ramp at Niblack targeting exceptional grades of copper, gold, zinc and silver mineralization along strike to the west as well as both up and down-dip step-outs from previous intercepts," said Heatherdale Resources President and CEO Rob McLeod. "The Lookout deposit is wide open for expansion, with the current mineral resource open for expansion from some of the highest-grade results encountered to-date on the property."

The Niblack project, which Heatherdale had previously brought to the verge of feasibility over a decade ago, has persisted and now two underground core rigs are committed to the project that will step out along strike and down-dip from Lookout Zone.

Initial planned underground holes at Lookout will step out up-dip and along strike from previous holes U131, which intersected 12.2 meters averaging 4.1% copper, 10.4 g/t gold, 11.6% zinc and 239.9 g/t silver; and U132, which intersected 4.1% copper, 8.2 g/t gold, 13.1% zinc and 194.1 g/t silver.

Additional holes on the same section will step out down-dip from U032, which intersected 1.2 meters averaging 2.2% copper, 3.5 g/t gold, 1.3% zinc and 61 g/t silver.

Furthermore, a pattern of holes is planned to test for the down-dip extension for Lookout Zone, around previous hole U074, which intersected 1.5 meters averaging 2% copper, 3.3 g/t gold, 23.3% zinc and 90 g/t silver.

These planned holes will be used to vector toward wider areas of mineralization which comprise the bulk of the resource at Niblack with the intercept in drill hole U074 being located approximately 80 meters down-dip of the current mineral resource.

Fourteen holes are planned as part of this program, with additional drilling dependent on visual observation of mineralization, as well as other geological controls identified in initial holes.

In January, Heatherdale reported encouraging mineralization observed in the first four holes of a late 2020 drill program at the historic Niblack Mine, which prompted the company to continue drilling in this area instead of also drilling the main resource area around Lookout, as was previously planned.

Heatherdale expects to receive assay results from the late-2020 drilling at the historic Niblack Mine in roughly a month.