The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
North of 60 Mining News – March 1, 2024
New geophysics has identified a 7.5-mile-long trend of gold-rich VMS targets extending south and northeast from the JT Deposit under the prominent mountain in this photo.
HighGold Mining Inc. Feb. 28 reported that a property-wide electromagnetic (EM) and magnetic geophysical survey has outlined a 7.5-mile- (12 kilometers) long corridor of gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) targets at Johnson Tract that are similar to the JT Deposit and Ellis Zone found along this trend, along with two significant porphyry-style copper-gold targets alongside the trend.
According to a 2022 calculation, JT Deposit hosts 3.49 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 5.33 grams per metric ton (598,000 ounces) gold, 6 g/t (673,000 oz) silver, 5.21% (400.8 million pounds) zinc, 0.59% (43.1 million lb) copper, and 0.67% (51.5 million lb) lead.
Including the value of all the metals, this comes to 1.05 million oz gold-equivalent.
Drilling completed in 2022 and 2023 has outlined a significant zone of similar mineralization at Ellis, but a resource has not yet been calculated for this target about 2.5 miles (four kilometers) northwest of JT.
Last year, a 667 line-kilometer MobileMT EM and magnetic survey was flown at 100-meter line spacing over the Johnson Tract property. The geophysical survey successfully detected JT and Ellis and identified multiple targets with similar signatures along the 7.5-mile-long trend.
"This new MobileMT airborne EM and magnetic survey is the first property-wide airborne geophysical survey completed by HighGold at Johnson Tract and is a valuable addition to our exploration toolbox," said HighGold Mining CEO Darwin Green.
Epithermal-VMS polymetallic gold targets similar to JT Deposit identified three primary target areas:
Click on image for larger Johnson Tract geophysics map.
• JT Deposit-South Valley-Double Glacier trend – Geophysical anomalies similar to the ones that outline the roughly 1,000-meter-long JT Deposit continue along strike to the south for more than 3,000 meters through the South Valley and Double Glacier targets, suggesting potential for undiscovered JT Deposit-style mineralization. Drill testing prior to this survey intersected significant alteration at these targets.
• DC-Ellis Zone anomaly – The MobileMT survey outlined a broad conductivity anomaly around the Ellis Zone, which is one target within the larger DC prospect area. HighGold says the anomaly supports its interpretation of a more than 2,000-meter-long hydrothermal system at DC and the likelihood of blind, untested, mineralized targets beneath overburden and cover rocks between the Ellis Zone and outcropping quartz-sulfide vein fields at the East DC and Upper DC targets.
• Midway target – The geophysical survey also identified a previously unknown, shallow conductivity anomaly about midway between JT Deposit and Ellis Zone. This blind target is within 200 meters of surface and is covered by younger rocks and vegetation.
The survey also detected two separate, but likely related, porphyry-style targets northwest of Ellis Zone:
• Easy Creek anomaly – The untested Easy Creek prospect shows chargeability and conductivity anomalies and a pipe-like magnetic anomaly, similar to those observed around known copper-gold porphyry deposits. These geophysical anomalies are coincident with geological features and geochemical signatures indicative of a potential copper-gold porphyry deposit. Much of the target area is masked by overburden.
• Kona anomaly – The newly acquired airborne magnetic data has identified a magnetic high between two strong alteration zones at Kona. When combined with the highest tellurium, selenium, and bismuth values seen in soil samples from JT, the geophysical and geochemical features of Kona are also indicative of a potential copper-gold porphyry deposit.
"We are excited by the results and look forward to testing the targets as we continue unlocking the district-scale potential of the property," said Green.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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