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

Discovery Africa Ltd. July 16 said it has completed an initial field program to validate and expand upon known gold occurrences on its Chulitna project about four miles west of the Parks Highway, roughly midway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska.

Situated south of Avidian Gold Corp.'s Golden Zone project, the approximately 46-mile Chulitna land package covers the Partin gold-silver-copper target and Coal Creek tin-silver zinc prospect.

Australia-based Discovery Africa, which announced in February it had obtained Chulitna through staking, hired an experienced and Alaskan professional geological firm to carry out a two-week field program that included the collection of 166 rock and 86 talus fine samples, as well as geological mapping across various prospects within the project area.

This reconnaissance exploration focused largely on Partin Creek.

Discovery Africa Ltd.

Highly mineralized outcrop sampled during Discovery Africa's preliminary exploration at Chulitna.

Historical mapping, trenching, and rock chip sampling carried out by the US Bureau of Mines identified two gold-silver-copper prospect areas at Partin Creek. Samples collected from one of these prospects in 1974 returned grades of up to around 7 grams per metric ton gold and 0.7% copper.

The company said geological mapping identified mineralization across a 1,600-meter stretch of Partin Creek and talus fine sampling was at the base of steep cliffs covering multiple prospect areas.

The samples have been shipped to the laboratory for multicommodity analysis – assays are pending.

Discovery Africa says it is hopeful this phase of work will lead to further follow-up exploration to identify priority anomalous targets for subsequent potential drilling.

The Australia-based exploration company had previously said it is working toward identifying and reviewing other new projects, with a focus on Alaska.