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

Discovery Alaska Ltd. May 23 reported that its initial scanning with a handheld analyzer identified lithium across the entire length of core from 12 historical holes drilled at the Coal Creek prospect on the company's Chulitna property in Alaska.

Situated about four miles west of the Parks Highway, roughly midway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Alaska, Chulitna is a roughly 77-square-mile property that covers the Partin Creek gold-silver-copper prospect and the Coal Creek tin-silver-zinc target.

The lithium identified by Discovery Alaska is associated with the tin occurrences identified at Coal Creek.

Houston Oil and Minerals drilled 42 holes at Coal Creek during the 1980s, culminating in a historical resource estimate of 4.8 million metric tons averaging 0.27% tin.

While the resource does not meet the rigor of current reporting standards, sampling of core stored at the Alaska Geologic Materials Center in Anchorage and four holes drilled in 2006 confirms the tin-silver potential of this easily accessible property.

Highlights from the previous drilling include 9.4 meters averaging 0.41% tin, 18.21 grams per metric ton silver, and 0.81% zinc; and 9.3 meters averaging 0.45% tin, 11.95 g/t silver, and 0.29% zinc.

Much of the core from the historical drilling is stored at the Alaska Geological Materials Center in Anchorage. A SciAps Z-901 LIBS (laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy) handheld analyzer was used to scan eight of the 1980s holes and all four holes drilled in 2006 for lithium.

These scans, which were taken at 2.5-foot (0.76 meters) intervals, identified at least trace lithium at every tested interval and one sample returned 4.29% lithium.

Discovery says these preliminary scan results indicate the lithium is found disseminated throughout the selected holes, with concentrations within mineralized greisen (highly altered granite or pegmatite) zones within the upper coarse-grained granite, and highly disseminated within the finer-grained granite.

The highest-grade sample was encountered in DDH-33, a 1980s hole that cut strong lithium grades from surface to a depth of 227 meters. A particularly high-grade 16-meter subsection of this hole returned samples that included 2.37%, 3.67%, 4.03%, 3.17%, 2.07%, 3.53%, 4.29%, and 3.62%.

For more definitive grades, the company will send samples from the selected holes to an assay lab for analysis.

"The company is excited to progress lithium exploration works at our Coal Creek prospect with positive scanning results indicating broad zones of lithium in all drill holes tested thus far. Next stage works include laboratory analysis testing of the prospective core identified from the scanned priority drill holes," said Discovery Alaska Director Jerko Zuvela. "We look forward to realising the lithium potential at our Coal Creek prospect and advancing works toward delineating a maiden JORC resource."

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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