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

Canadian North Resources Inc. Sept. 26 announced initial assays from the 2023 definition drilling program on the company's Ferguson Lake nickel-copper-cobalt-platinum group metals project in Nunavut, Canada.

According to a 2022 calculation, Ferguson Lake hosts 24.3 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.85% (455.4 million pounds) copper, 0.6% (296.3 million lb) nickel, 0.07% (37.5 million lb) cobalt, 1.38 grams per metric ton (1.08 million ounces) palladium, and 0.23 g/t (180,000 oz) platinum; plus 47.2 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 0.91% (946.9 million lb) copper, 0.53% (551.5 million lb) nickel, 0.06% (62.4 million lb) cobalt, 1.4 g/t (2.12 million oz) palladium, and 0.25 g/t (380,000 oz) platinum.

Canadian North's recently completed summer program included 21,127 meters in 78 holes focused on upgrading and expanding mineral resources in the East and West zones, as well as test satellite mineralized horizons M-Zone, Anomaly-51 Zone and its east extension.

"The drill program intersected semi-massive to massive sulphides of the main or satellite mineralized horizons in 69 out of the 78 holes, and in particular, drilling intersected a widening of the prospective host gabbro to hundreds of meters thickness carrying disseminated, semi-massive and massive sulphides in the west extension of the West Zone," said Canadian North Vice President of Exploration Trevor Boyd. "The exploration program visually confirmed significant extensions of the sulphide zones along the 15-km long main mineralized horizon as well as the prospectivity of satellite horizons."

During 2023, the company also conducted the reprocessing and modeling of historic geophysical electromagnetic ultrafast transmission electron microscopy (UTEM), versatile time domain electromagnetic (VTEM), and borehole time-domain electromagnetics (TDEM) survey data, which aided in the drill targeting during the summer program, as well as completing new borehole TDEM surveys on selected deep drill holes.

In addition, surface sampling was completed on selected outcrop on the project site.

Assay results for the first 21 holes drilled during the spring program at Ferguson Lake were reported mid-July; highlights include:

• 10 meters averaging 0.89% copper, 0.53% nickel, 0.08% cobalt, 1.05 g/t palladium, 0.12 g/t platinum, and 0.02 g/t rhenium from a depth of 47.57 meters in hole FL23-504A.

• Five meters averaging 0.83% copper, 0.34% nickel, 0.04% cobalt, 0.78 g/t palladium, 0.12 g/t platinum, and 0.01 g/t rhenium from 84.5 meters in FL23-515.

• 14 meters averaging 0.32% copper, 0.39% nickel, 0.05% cobalt, 0.65 g/t palladium, 0.16 g/t platinum, and 0.02 g/t rhenium from 16.99 meters in FL23-501.

• Five meters averaging 0.61% copper, 0.83% nickel, 0.07% cobalt, 1.07 g/t palladium, 0.17 g/t platinum, and 0.01 g/t rhenium from 87.5 meters in FL23-521.

Canadian North says that most of the holes completed during the summer program were drilled between 100-275 meters deep to test near-surface mineralization, and selected holes were drilled to depths of up to 1,000 meters to test thickened mineralized gabbro sections of up to 500-meter widths within the West Zone.

Drilling west of the historic resource boundaries of the main West Zone at depths of 150 to 700 meters suggests a widening of the host gabbro rock unit to up to 450 meters in thickness associated with downhole observed intersections of up to 110 meters of disseminated to semi-massive sulfides in the drill core, the company says.

Highlights from selected intervals of initial drill holes from the summer program include:

• 10 meters averaging 1.48% copper, 0.48% nickel, 0.06% cobalt, 1.28 g/t palladium, 0.06 g/t platinum, and 0.02 g/t rhenium from a depth of 656 meters in hole FL23-481B.

• 33.85 meters averaging 0.24% copper, 0.21% nickel, 0.03% cobalt, 0.59 g/t palladium, and 0.13 g/t platinum from 299.85 meters in FL23-497A.

• Three meters averaging 0.58% copper, 0.75% nickel, 0.07% cobalt, 1.33 g/t palladium, 0.11 g/t platinum, and 0.02 g/t rhenium from 198.5 meters in FL23-522A.

• Nine meters averaging 0.74% copper, 0.42% nickel, 0.06% cobalt, 0.9 g/t palladium, 0.13 g/t platinum, and 0.02 g/t rhenium from 238 meters in FL23-524.

Based upon these results, the East Zone has been extended along strike 950 meters further to the east from its historic resource boundaries, and the West Zone has been extended further along strike 250 meters to the west.

Canadian North Resources Inc.

Click image for larger map.

"These initial results from the summer portion of the 21,126 metre 2023 program continue to extend the West and East zones," said Boyd. "These results are expected to significantly upgrade and add new resources to the current mineral resource estimates."

The results, combined with the 2022 drilling, also extend the central part of the West Zone up to 250 meters further down-dip.

Assay results are pending for ten holes drilled to test along strike west of the West Zone at those depths.

Assay results for 16 shallow holes to test prospective satellite targets – M-Zone and Anomaly-51 Zone south of the East Zone, and on a small island south of the Central Zone in Ferguson Lake – also remain pending.

Canadian North says that once all program results are received and compiled, they will be added to the project's dataset to improve the block deposit model and to update the 2022 Ferguson Lake mineral resource estimate.