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

Freegold Ventures Ltd. Aug. 18 reported that this year's drilling continues to cut wide sections of above- resource-grade gold mineralization and shorter bonanza-grade intercepts at its Golden Summit project about 25 miles north of Fairbanks, Alaska.

Prior to 2020, most of the drilling at Golden Summit focused on Dolphin, a deposit that hosts 61.5 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.69 grams per metric ton (1.36 million ounces) gold; and 71.5 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.69 g/t (1.58 million oz) gold.

With grades reminiscent of the ore feeding the mill and heap leach facility at Kinross Gold Corp.'s neighboring Fort Knox Mine, this deposit holds promise for future bulk tonnage mining.

Last year, Freegold began tracing very high-grade gold mineralization from the historic Cleary Hill Mine, which produced 281,000 oz of gold from ore averaging 1.3 oz per ton before the operation was shuttered during World War II, westward towards the Dolphin deposit.

Following the success of the 2020 drilling, a 40,000-meter drill program being carried out this year is focused on determining the orientation and extent of the higher–grade mineralization between the Dolphin and Cleary zones, and upgrading the current resource to further advance the project through prefeasibility.

Though Freegold is more than 23,000 meters into this program underway in February, the assay results from this drilling have been slow due to a backlog at a facility in Fairbanks that preps samples prior to shipping them to either Reno or Vancouver for analyses.

In early June, the company reported results from the first hole of this program, which cut a broad zone of higher than resource grade gold mineralization northeast of the Dolphin deposit and on the projected trend of mineralization extending towards the Cleary vein system.

This hole, GS2101, cut 421.6 meters averaging 1.11 g/t gold from a depth of 210.1 meters, including a 110-meter subsection that averaged 1.54 g/t gold from 467 meters.

This latest batch of results, the second from the 2021 drilling at Golden Summit, included similarly impressive widths of gold mineralization about 525 meters southwest of GS2101.

This hole, GS2122, cut 495.8 meters averaging 1.17 g/t gold from a depth of 59.5 meters, including 111.2 meters of 2.94 g/t gold at the bottom of the hole.

The latest batch of drill results also includes a bonanza grade intercept about 25 meters north of GS2017, a 2020 hole that cut 1.7 meters averaging a staggering 588 grams per metric ton (18.9 ounces per metric ton) gold. This was part of a 219.8-meter intercept that averaged 1.61 g/t gold.

GS2121 cut 1.1 meters averaging 609 g/t (19.6 oz/t) gold. This was part of 166.8-meter intercept averaging 1.55 g/t gold when the 1.1-meter bonanza-grade portion was cut to 88 g/t gold.

GS2118, drilled about 25 meters east of GS2017, cut several gold zones that include 1.1 meters averaging 14.95 g/t gold from a depth of 36.9 meters, 18 meters of 2.81 g/t from 230 meters, 18.5 meters averaging 5.54 g/t gold from 304.5 meters, and 68 meters averaging 0.83 g/t gold from 354 meters.

Results for hole GS2126 and GS2123 drilled to the south and west of hole GS2017, respectively, are pending.

Hole GS2103, which was drilled deeper than any previous holes at the south end of the Dolphin deposit, cut 267 meters averaging 0.73 g/t gold from a depth of 536.4 meters, tracing mineralization well below the depth of any other holes in the vicinity.

Freegold Ventures Ltd.

Two other holes drilled on the northwest side of the mineralized system, GS2102 and 2104, encountered relatively minor intercepts, generally from 0.4-0.5 g/t gold over widths of 30-40 meters. Moreover, Freegold said both holes intersected significant faulting, which may be an indication of a substantial offset.

Freegold says this year's drilling will also test an area south of the Cleary Hill mine that includes the historically mined Colorado, Wackwitz, and Wyoming vein zones which have never been tested to depth or along strike to the east. Past drilling in the Cleary Hill area has been largely shallow in nature and it is interpreted that the Dolphin intrusive likely underlies the Cleary Hill area at depth.

In addition, Freegold is planning to test other targets on the Golden Summit property that may have the potential to host additional resources. Ground geophysics and soil sampling have been conducted on these areas and further drilling is being planned to test these.

Author Bio

Shane Lasley, Publisher

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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