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

Snowline Gold Corp. May 31 announced that visible gold has been observed in 10 of the first 14 holes drilled this year at the Valley Zone of the company's Rogue gold project in the Yukon.

Drill crews and staff were recently mobilized to Snowline's 50-man Forks Camp to complete up to 18,000 meters of drilling this year.

"Following a transformative year in 2022, we are excited to be back in the field with a larger and more advanced 2023 exploration campaign," said Snowline Gold Vice President of Exploration Thomas Branson. "Our team has done fantastic work in getting us off to an early start."

At least 15,000 meters of the 2023 drilling is planned for Rogue, Snowline's flagship property.

Within that, 10,000 meters are targeted for Valley Zone, while the remaining 5,000 will be used for phase two program at Gracie and additional phase one targets.

"This season will see us pursue two key objectives: 1) to further advance the Rogue project's Valley discovery through efficient de-risking and delineation, as the scale, grade and consistency of our 2022 results from Valley rank highly among near-surface, bulk tonnage gold deposits and discoveries drilled anywhere in the world last year; and 2) to make additional drill discoveries at Rogue and on our broader portfolio," said Branson. "We see Valley not only as an exceptional discovery, but also as a strong proof-of-concept for the geological potential of our district-scale and still largely unexplored land position."

Aside from Rogue, the exploration drilling at Gracie and others will be complemented by an extensive program of stream sediment, soil, and rock sampling, as well as prospecting and geological mapping to follow up on various unexplained geochemical anomalies throughout the project.

This is aimed at generating additional new targets with potential for grade and scale.

Additionally, a project-level aerial z-axis tipper electromagnetic (ZTEM) geophysical survey totaling roughly 3,000-line-kilometers is planned, which Snowline believes will be supplemented by further magnetic or other geophysical surveying specific to individual targets.

On the docket for phase one exploration, Snowline has slated at least four targets to be examined using a fourth drill. This drilling is to follow up on historical prospecting results and regional work done by the company over the last two years.

Following initial surface-based field programs commencing in June, drilling is expected to commence in mid-July. Potential targets for this drilling include:

• Tosh project, southwestern Yukon – for untested orogenic gold targets associated with one- and two-kilometer gold-in-soil anomalies, widespread alteration, and prospecting grab samples from below detection up to 6.8 grams per metric ton gold and up to 1,100 grams per metric ton silver.

• Cliff project, southwestern Yukon – for an untested orogenic gold target associated with a 1,600-meter by 300-meter gold-in-soil-and-talus-fine anomaly with values averaging 0.179 g/t gold; and up to 3.1 g/t gold in talus fines.

Snowline Gold Corp.

• Rainbow project, central Yukon – for an untested reduced intrusion-related gold system target associated with a 1,000-meter scale gold-bismuth-tellurium gold-in-soil-and-talus-fine anomaly along the edge of a 2,000- to 3,000-meter magnetic anomaly.

• Olympus project (formerly Golden Oly) – for untested and partially tested RIRGS and porphyry targets associated with significant geochemical anomalies.

The company says that the proportion and total amount of drill planned for each target, along with certain other planned surface activities, are rough working guides and are adaptable based on drill results and other observations or factors throughout the season.

Following the success of last year, Snowline hopes to keep up the momentum, and this year's drill program appears to keep that goal in mind.