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

ATAC Resources Ltd. Dec. 15 reported an update on the grassroots exploration it carried out this year at Rosy, a gold-silver project 77 kilometers (48 miles) east of Whitehorse, Yukon.

"Grassroots work at Rosy this year has significantly expanded the previously known gold-in-soil anomaly," said ATAC Resources President and CEO Graham Downs. "While Rosy has seen only sporadic historical exploration, with a limited portion of the property covered by geochemical surveys, this work has already identified significant gold targets."

The road-accessible Rosy property surrounds the Red Mountain molybdenum deposit. ATAC, however, is exploring the widespread gold-silver bearing veins that are likely associated with the Lake Cretaceous Boswell Pluton that hosts the Red Mountain deposit.

Hosting two main types of mineralization, the Rosy property is indicative of the distal part of a large hydrothermal system, likely in a low-sulfidation epithermal setting.

The first type of mineralization occurs within quartz-carbonate veins, while the second is found in altered intrusive rocks. To date, more than 30 separate quartz-carbonate veins have been mapped on the property and occur with gouge zones, quartz-feldspar porphyry dykes, and carbonate altered wall rocks.

Grab samples collected during historical prospecting at Rosy returned as much as 35.92 grams per metric ton gold and 32.4 g/t silver, and 0.31 g/t gold with 1,835 g/t silver. Three shallow holes drilled by a previous operator in 2010, however, did not return any significant results. So far, this is the only recorded drilling on the Rosy property, with numerous geochemical and prospecting targets remaining undrilled.

Looking to begin refining targets for future drilling, ATAC's 2021 exploration at Rosy consisted of a small soil sampling program, with a total of 473 samples collected. This work included a broad regional contour sampling in under-explored portions of the property as well as grid sampling along a trend of known anomalies.

A base-of-slope contour sample traverse north of the previously defined gold-in-soil anomaly extended the target area 500 meters into the next valley (as seen on the map). This contour sampling also extended the anomaly 1,000 meters to the northeast below an untested ridge.

New soil samples in this area returned as much as 0.17 g/t gold. Previous sampling in this same area returned grades as high as 1.82 g/t gold in soil.

Further to the north, regional contour soil sampling encountered sporadically elevated samples, including assays up to 0.57 g/t gold.

In the southern portions of the Rosy property, contour sampling returned multiple anomalous samples, including 0.25 g/t gold in soil. In addition, elevated levels of arsenic were noted in soil samples in this area, which is correlated with mineralization elsewhere on the property.

"Follow-up exploration to further refine our targets and to better evaluate the epithermal gold-silver potential at Rosy is clearly warranted," said Downs.