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

White Rock Minerals Ltd. Feb. 17 reported that it has doubled the inferred resource at Dry Creek with 3,800 meters of drilling completed last year in 12 holes at this high-grade volcanogenic massive sulfide deposit on the company's Red Mountain project in Alaska.

Located about 60 miles (100 kilometers) south of Fairbanks, the 323-square-mile (836 square kilometers) project hosts both high-grade zinc-lead-silver-gold VMS deposits and intrusion-related gold prospects.

"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," Quinton Hennigh, a technical advisor to White Rock Minerals, said last year.

The 2021 program at Red Mountain included resource expansion drilling at Dry Creek, a silver-rich VMS zinc deposit at the eastern end of the property.

This drilling, which tested the down-dip expansion potential of the resource along a 1,000-meter stretch of the deposit, cut some spectacular grades.

From a depth of 487.1 meters, hole DC21-97 cut 5.8 meters averaging 11.5% zinc, 3.4% lead, 69 grams per metric ton silver, 0.8 g/t gold, and 0.1% copper. This intercept included a 1.4-meter interval averaging 35% zinc, 12.2% lead, 237 g/t silver, 2.9 g/t gold, and 0.3% copper.

Incorporating the 12 holes completed last year, Dry Creek now hosts 4.9 million metric tons averaging 4.5% (405,000 metric tons) zinc, 1.6% (188,000 metric tons) lead, 0.2% (10,000 metric tons) copper, 58 g/t (9.1 million ounces) silver, and 0.5 g/t (229,000 oz) gold.

White Rock Mineral Ltd.

"Dry Creek is open down dip and appears to become higher grade in the vicinity of hole DC21-97," said Hennigh. "While confidence is high that further drilling at Dry Creek will yet further increase Red Mountain resources, substantial upside remains in newly identified high grade VMS targets identified by White Rock in 2021. This is a project that could easily grow to become a world class, high grade VMS camp, purely organically with the drill bit."

When combined with the currently larger WTF deposit about 3,000 meters to the northeast, Red Mountain now hosts 11.6 million metric tons averaging 5.5% (1.37 million metric tons) zinc, 2.3% (267,000 metric tons) lead, 0.1% (17,000 metric tons) copper, 134 g/t (49.9 million oz) silver, and 0.8 g/t (308,000 oz) gold.

This represents a 28% increase in the tonnage of this high-grade silver and zinc enriched inferred resource at Red Mountain.

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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