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

Strategic Metals Ltd., a longtime project generator in the Yukon, is helping to spur industry interest in the prospectivity of the territory's southwestern region for critical minerals as more explorers undertake projects in this underexplored region.

Strategic optioned 70% ownership interest in Hopper, a 74 square-kilometer (28.6 square miles) multi-target porphyry copper-molybdenum project with significant copper-gold-silver peripheral skarn mineralization to CAVU Mining Corp. Ltd. in April 2021.

A year later, CAVU changed its name to CAVU Energy Metals Corp. and in early August reported the results of its first exploration season at the property.

These include Hole HOP22-DDH04, which extends the porphyry copper target by 400 meters, with assay intervals including 0.106% copper over 306.75 meters from 25.3 meters depth; 0.348% copper over 31.82 meters from 163 meters, including 3.63% copper over two meters; and 0.442% copper over 15.56 meters from 267.4 meters depth.

CAVU said the highly enriched background values in the propylitic zone of HOP22-DDH04 and the higher-grade intervals within that zone are indicative of a significant porphyry copper system hosted within the Hopper Intrusive Complex.

"The results from HOP22-DDH04 clearly indicate the presence of a large propylitic zone, the type of alteration that commonly forms halos around the mineralized centers of porphyry systems," CAVU Energy Metals CEO Jaap Verbaas, said in announcing the results. "We are seeing all the right ingredients for a substantial porphyry copper discovery on the Hopper Copper-Gold Porphyry project."

The skarn mineralization at Hopper has yielded a best intercept of 22.28 meters at 1.405% copper (Hole HOP-21-DDH01), and drill testing of the porphyry target has yielded 116 meters at 0.209% copper from surface (Hole HOP-21-DDH06).

In mid-August, CAVU shareholders agreed to be acquired by Alpha Energy Corp. in an all-stock transaction that the two companies completed in mid-December.

The merger brings together CAVU's Hopper and Star (copper-gold porphyry project in British Columbia) projects and Alpha's Indata copper-gold and Okeover copper-molybdenum projects in BC.

"We believe the addition of CAVU and its Star and Hopper assets to Alpha's significant project portfolio of properties in British Columbia will be highly accretive for the shareholders of both Alpha and CAVU," Alpha Energy CEO Darryl Jones said in a statement Dec. 19. "With the current interest in copper assets, both for traditional uses and to support the expanding demand for battery metals, Alpha will be aggressively pursuing all four assets."

Progress at Wellgreen

In southwestern Yukon's Kluane ultramafic belt, seven exploration projects were underway in 2021, the most recent field season for which industry-wide data is available until this spring. Together, the projects comprised 8% of the territory's mining exploration activities and 1% of the sector's total expenditures.

In addition to porphyry copper, the focus of activity in the region centered on nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group elements projects.

In early November, Nickel Creek Platinum Corp. reported completion of the 2022 drilling and geophysics program at its Nickel Shäw project with total drilling of about 3,300 meters. Nickel Shäw, a large undeveloped nickel sulfide project with a unique mix of metals, including copper, cobalt, and platinum group metals, is located 26 kilometers (16.5 miles) northwest of Burwash Landing. It is arguably the most advanced exploration project in the region.

The 2022 program included eight holes with roughly 2,000 meters of prefeasibility study drilling at the Wellgreen deposit. This included drilling to support the conversion of inferred mineral resources to indicated mineral resources and the collection of additional geotechnical and hydrogeological data, including the characterization of proposed waste dump and tailings sites. The company also drilled 10 holes totaling about 1,300 meters at the Arch exploration target with the objective of further defining the extent of mineralization discovered in 2021. Drilling focused on the Arch and Burwash targets and tested conductors identified in a time-domain electromagnetic survey conducted in 2020.

Massive sulfide nickel-copper mineralization was intersected in five of six holes drilled at Arch. The best intercept came in hole ASD21-004, which cut 11.95 meters averaging 1.41% nickel, 0.55% copper, 0.02% cobalt, 0.91 grams per metric ton platinum, 1.46 g/t palladium, and 0.12 g/t gold.

Three holes were drilled at the Burwash target; none intersected greater than 0.3% nickel.

Early-stage exploration

Strategic Metals is exploring several prospective properties in Southwest Yukon, including the Nikki project and the drill-ready Mint project.

The project generator Nov. 30 reported encouraging drill results at its Batt project, which covers volcanogenic massive sulfide and overprinting epigenetic vein and fracture-hosted copper, cobalt, and gold, along with intermittent silver and zinc mineralization.

Located about 68 kilometers (42 miles) south of the town of Haines Junction in southwestern Yukon, the Batt property lies within the Traditional Territory of Champagne and Aishihik First Nations, with whom Strategic has a signed exploration benefits agreement.

Highlights of recent work at Batt include:

• 0.71% copper, 0.21% cobalt and 1.18 g/t gold over 5.7 meters from a hand trench through oxidized and deformed volcanic and intrusive rocks.

• 2.18% cobalt and 2.37 g/t gold over 0.5 meters from an outcropping shear zone.

• 8.72% copper, 0.24% zinc, 19.9 g/t silver and 488 parts per million cobalt over 1 meter within strongly silicified basalt with localized semi-massive to massive sulfides.

• 19.7% copper and 41 g/t silver from large, angular massive chalcopyrite boulder.

• 1.46% cobalt and 1.43 g/t gold over 0.5 meter from a quartz-carbonate vein.

Copper-gold at Nikki

Nickel Creek Platinum Corp.

A view south from the Alaska Highway toward Nickel Creek Platinum's Nickel Shäw project in southwestern Yukon.

At Strategic's Nikki property, located in Wrangellia terrane near the Yukon-Alaska border, 18 kilometers (11 miles) south-southeast of the Alaska Highway, Strategic Metals is exploring a large copper- and gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly that overlies an altered, multi-phase intrusive suite, with copper values up to 2,750 ppm and up to 1,590 parts per billion gold.

Chip sampling from two hand trenches in the core of the soil anomaly at Nikki returned weighted average grades of 0.38% copper and 0.36 g/t gold over 6 meters, and 0.47% copper and 0.19 g/t gold over 8 meters.

Skarn mineralization is found along a ridge-top where calcareous sedimentary rock is in contact with a granodiorite, and chip samples across the skarn have returned 11.95 g/t gold over two meters. Five diamond drill holes have been completed on the project, demonstrating deep copper-gold mineralization associated with a phase of intensely altered, crowded feldspar porphyry. Drill results include 0.13% copper and 0.08 g/t gold over 64 meters.