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

Klondike Gold Corp. Dec. 6 announced that drilling tapped strong gold mineralization at the Gay Gulch target on the company's Klondike District Gold Project in Yukon, Canada.

Located roughly 20 kilometers (12 miles) southeast of Dawson City, the Klondike District Gold Project is comprised of 3,913 quartz claims in one contiguous land package covering 727 square kilometers (452 miles) of the famed Yukon gold district.

Advancing the project for over a decade, Klondike's land package includes the Eldorado property and the Klondike Gold claims. Found within the northernmost Eldorado are the Lone Star and Stander zones, which together host 21.59 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 0.68 grams per metric ton (468,901 ounces) gold and 6.46 million tons of inferred resource averaging 0.54 g/t (111,959 oz) gold.

Nestled within the heart of the famed historical Klondike Gold Rush region is Gay Gulch. Initially discovered through drilling in 2015, previous sampling returned gold grades reminiscent of the days of yore that caused the northern stampede.

Sampling from selected outcrop and subcrop yielded gold values of less than 0.5 parts per million to 9.6 g/t gold at Lone Star (four samples); 11.7 g/t gold at Stander (one sample); and less than 0.5 ppm to 0.8 g/t gold from other areas (nine samples).

Out of 12 rock grab samples collected from the Gay Gulch showing last year, 11 assayed between less than 0.05 g/t gold and 8.1 g/t gold and anomalous silver. No detectable tellurium was associated with these samples.

However, what got the company excited about the new discovery at Gay Gulch came in the 12th sample, which returned 4,064 g/t gold, 1,149 g/t silver, along with anomalous tellurium (16.1 ppm), bismuth (3.5 ppm), antimony (24.6 ppm), and mercury (15.2 ppm).

The high gold sample was collected on Eldorado Creek, approximately 1,000 meters along a structural trend from Gay Gulch.

Now, nearly a year later, more intensive work and strategic targeting have resulted once more in bringing Klondike bonanza-grade to the present.

"The collaboration this summer with orogenic gold experts' Rich Goldfarb and Ben Frieman has produced consequential exploration insights into the geology and structural controls affecting gold mineralization within the Klondike District," said Klondike Gold President and CEO Peter Tallman. "Positive systematic exploration results following these insights includes high gold grades from Dominion, Gold Run, and now Gay Gulch."

Prospecting, mapping, and drilling were conducted at Gay Gulch along an 800-meter strike from the Stander zone resource area.

Six prospecting samples of individual five- to 20-centimeter-wide outcrop quartz veins were collected in the Gay Gulch showing from new exposures of shear veining containing visible gold adjacent gold-mineralized sheeted veins.

New sampling of the main shear veins yielded a highlight outcrop sample that returned 108.1 g/t gold, containing abundant visible gold. This is the same area where the above-mentioned 4,064 g/t gold sample was collected.

Six of seven holes drilled at Gay Gulch this year intersected gold-bearing sheeted veins with visible gold noted in two – EC23-501 and EC23-503.

Two additional holes, EC23-506 and EC23-507, targeted an area of gold-bearing quartz vein float in pre-1949 pits and trenches located by recent prospecting 600 meters uphill from the primary showing. Both of these at "Upper Gay Gulch" intersected interesting gold-bearing quartz vein intervals.

Highlights from this year's drilling at Gay Gulch include:

• 26.5 meters averaging 1.22 g/t gold from a depth of 19.55 meters in hole DDH EC23-501, including 6.95 meters averaging 4.39 g/t gold.

• 19.9 meters averaging 0.83 g/t gold from 17.1 meters in DDH EC23-502, including 1.1 meters averaging 14.08 g/t gold.

Klondike Gold Corp.

Click image for larger cross-section map of Gay Gulch.

• 27.85 meters averaging 0.38 g/t gold from 89.15 meters in DDH EC23-503, including 0.21 meters averaging 12.9 g/t gold.

Klondike says the higher-grade gold identified at Gay Gulch is present in shear veins, and sheeted quartz veins developed preferentially along the martins of granite mapped there. This association is typical of important orogenic gold districts throughout the world.

"The recognition and documentation of gold-related thrusting consistent with predictive orogenic gold models at specific gold showings and gold resource areas is a gigantic step forward," said Tallman. "These continuing positive 2023 results will have an even greater impact going forward. I believe we'll look back on the 2023 season as a breakthrough moment in the development of the historic Klondike Gold District."