Sitka Gold Corp. Aug. 17 announced that drilling has encountered widespread mineralization, including visible gold, in large step-out drilling at Blackjack during the ongoing drill program at the company's RC Gold project in Yukon, Canada.

Consisting of a 376-square-kilometer (145 square miles) contiguous district-scale land package located in the newly road-accessible Clear Creek, Big Creek, and Sprague Creek districts in the heart of Yukon's Tombstone Gold Belt, RC Gold is one of the largest consolidated land packages in the Yukon.

This highly fertile and largely underexplored land package is situated about 100 kilometers (62 miles) east of Dawson City, at the headwaters of Clear Creek and Big Creek, a major placer mining district that is serviced by a network of gravel roads and trails.

Lying between Victoria Gold's Eagle Gold Mine and Sabre Gold Mine's Brewery Creek gold mine, the property comprises five underlying targets – RC, Bee Bop, Mahtin, Clear Creek, and Barney Ridge.

In March, Sitka announced an initial inferred mineral resource estimate for two targets at its RC Gold project. According to the calculation, its flagship Blackjack hosts 33.7 million metric tons averaging 0.83 grams per metric ton (900,000 ounces) gold at a cutoff grade of 0.25 g/t, while Eiger hosts 27.4 million metric tons averaging 0.5 g/t (440,000 oz) gold at the same cutoff.

Combined, the initial inferred resource amounts to roughly 1.34 million oz gold.

And with recent results, Sitka feels optimistic about that number climbing higher.

"Mineralization, including visible gold, encountered within these large step-outs of up to 450 metres, is very encouraging and further demonstrates the potential to significantly expand our Blackjack deposit," said Sitka Gold CEO Cor Coe. "In conjunction with recently completed surface sampling, geophysics, mapping and prospecting, it is becoming more and more evident that the Clear Creek Intrusive Complex, which spans for over 5 kilometres and hosts a minimum of 6 intrusions, has the potential to host several intrusion related gold deposits of significant size."

The main host to the Blackjack deposit, the Saddle intrusion is exposed in a north-south direction over approximately 1,500 meters.

With the current footprint of Blackjack covering the central portion of the Saddle intrusion, the north has not been tested by drilling prior to the current program. Sitka says the deposit is open to the north into an area where previous mapping had identified extensive sheeted quartz-sulfide veining and returned gold values from 0.06 to 4.54 g/t gold.

Additionally, recent mapping and prospecting identified additional quartz-sulfide veining in the northern extension of the Saddle intrusion.

"Based on the drilling completed to date, quartz-arsenopyrite veining and mineralization associated with the Blackjack zone now appears to cover roughly 1000 metres of the Saddle intrusion," added Coe. "The Saddle zone located to the east of the Blackjack deposit is expanding with this recent drilling and remains open in all directions."

Its latest holes were drilled 130, 170, and 250 meters north of the current margin of the Blackjack resource. These three holes – DDRCCC-23-050, 051, and 052 – were drilled to the north and encountered sheeted quartz-sulfide veining in intrusive and metasedimentary rocks.

DDRCCC-23-048 was drilled to test a portion of the southern extent of the Saddle intrusion, which was mapped at surface for an additional 500 meters south of the southern margin of Blackjack's current resource.

Located approximately 85 meters south of the current resource, it was drilled into an area where previous mapping had identified sulfide mineralization in sheeted quartz veins with gold values ranging from 0.01 to 8.62 g/t gold.

This drill hole encountered zones of sheeted quartz-sulfide veining in intrusive and metasedimentary rocks.

Its most significant hole, DDRCCC-23-053, was located 450 meters east of the eastern margin of the current Blackjack resource. Located approximately 200 meters west of drill holes DDRCCC-20-001 (84.8 meters averaging 0.52 g/t gold) and DDRCCC-21-019 (80 meters averaging 0.59 g/t gold), this hole intersected metasedimentary and intrusive rocks with some of the strongest arsenopyrite development seen in quartz veins and fractures in metasedimentary rocks to date.

Visible gold was identified in two locations in quartz sulfide veins in the rock.

Finally, DDRCCC-23-054 was drilled in a northwest direction from the same location as 053. While this hole intersected dominantly metasediments intruded by one- to 10-meter-scale intrusive dykes, quartz sulfide veins cross-cut all units, with arsenopyrite generally being the dominant sulfide.

Click image for larger map.

"While the observations of visible gold and multiple quartz-arsenopyrite veining seen in these step-outs are often good indicators of gold mineralization at Blackjack, we won't know the extent of mineralization in these drill holes until we have received the assay results," the Sitka CEO said. "We look forward to receiving the analytical results from these large step-out holes along with other completed holes from this summer's diamond drill program as we continue to explore this highly prospective area of the RC Gold Project".