White Rock Minerals Ltd. this week reported that exploration crews have discovered a new gold prospect near the Last Chance target on its Red Mountain project and drills have tapped an extension of the Hunter volcanogenic massive sulfide zinc discovery at the eastern end of this 323-square-mile (836 square kilometers) multimineral project in Alaska.

"White Rock has a plethora of exploration opportunities across its contiguous Last Chance-Red Mountain project in central Alaska," Quinton Hennigh, a technical advisor to White Rock Minerals, said earlier this year. "The dual opportunity to explore an exciting new large orogenic-intrusion-related gold system and a potentially world-class volcanogenic massive sulfide district at a time when all metals are heading into a resounding bull market puts White Rock in a league all by itself."

On the gold front, geological reconnaissance has identified Pepper, a gold prospect about three miles (5 kilometers) west of the Last Chance discovery.

A 2020 reconnaissance drill program carried out at Last Chance returned grades as high as 24.8 grams per metric ton gold over 1.2 meters.

Prospecting and sampling carried out at Pepper this year have identified four distinct areas, separated by talus cover, that extend for more than 1,000 meters.

Recent assay results of rock chip grab samples collected from breccia outcrop at Pepper have returned assay with up to 6.5 g/t gold, along with associated silver, arsenic, and antimony. Soil samples of talus fine material have returned up to 1.7 g/t gold, along with anomalous in arsenic and antimony.

Assay results from additional rock and soil samples collected from the Pepper prospect are pending.

Hunter West zinc discovery

Roughly 22 miles (35 kilometers) east of Pepper, drills have tapped zinc-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide mineralization at Hunter West, a fault displaced continuation of the 2018 Hunter discovery on the company's Red Mountain project in Alaska.

The Hunter and Hunter West target area is located about three miles (five kilometers) southwest of Dry Creek and WTF, deposits at Red Mountain that host a combined 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 oz) silver; and 0.9 g/t (260,000 oz) gold.

The 2018 Hunter discovery hole, HR18-01, cut 1.4 meters of massive sulfide averaging 17.4% zinc, 3.9% lead, 90 g/t silver, and 1.6% copper. This equates to 25.8% zinc-equivalent when you consider the value of all the metals encountered.

The second Hunter hole, HR18-02, cut 1.8 meters averaging 13.8% zinc, 3.1% lead, 56 g/t silver, and 0.9% copper. This equates to 19.4% zinc-equivalent.

Targeting the fault displaced down-dip continuation of this mineralization, HR21-07 cut 0.2 meters averaging 11.9% zinc, 2.8% lead, 0.9% copper, 63 g/t silver, and 0.2 g/t gold, from a depth of 184.8 meters. This polymetallic suite of metals equates to 17.5% zinc-equivalent.

White Mountain says the mineralized horizon at Hunter West can be mapped for more than 1,000 meters along strike from the fault offset. While the mineralization continues to be narrow at Hunter, VMS deposits often pinch and swell.

The company says future work at Hunter and Hunter West will use a combination of geology, structure, and geophysics to identify positions along strike and down-dip where the sheet of massive sulfides could occur as thicker accumulations.

Though White Rock began drilling in late May and samples from the first drill hole at Dry Creek were sent to the laboratory for analysis roughly 12 weeks ago, the assays from hole HR18-01 mark the first results to be returned from the lab.

White Rock Minerals Ltd.

With North American assay labs experiencing unprecedented backlogs during the 2021 field season, White Rock is not the only exploration company experiencing significant delays this year. To help expedite assay results, the company has begun using alternative labs for subsequent drill holes.

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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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