PolarX Ltd (ASX:PXX) has intersected several thick zones of copper-bearing massive sulphides in its first three holes drilled for metallurgical sampling purposes at the high-grade Caribou Dome Copper Project in Alaska.
The company’s drill program comprising 1,500 metres of core drilling, will now test three highly promising targets defined by soil sampling and geophysics.
Samples from these holes will be used for new metallurgical test-work to support the scoping study on mining and processing options for the Caribou Dome and nearby Zackly deposits.
Caribou Dome’s mineral resource is 2.8 million tonnes at 3.1% copper and Zackly’s mineral resource is 3.4 million tonnes at 1.2% copper and 2 g/t gold.
“Three exciting new targets”
PolarX managing director Dr Frazer Tabeart, who is on-site in Alaska for the duration of the drilling program said: “These samples look spectacular. They are close to holes from 2015 and 2016 which yielded up to 51.1 metres at 5.3% copper.
“These new samples will be assayed and used for metallurgical test-work as part of our current scoping study on the Alaska Range Project.
“We’ve now moved onto the three exciting new exploration targets, with the first drill hole already underway.”
Copper grades
PolarX has drilled four holes at Caribou Dome this month to provide samples of copper mineralisation for metallurgical test-work.
The holes were drilled into zones of copper mineralisation hosted in massive to semi-massive sulphides as predicted by the resource block model used for resource estimation in April 2017.
Each new target shows anomalous copper in surface soil sampling and an associated 3D-IP anomaly, the same features are seen in the existing defined copper mineral resource.
Historical drilling used to estimate the maiden mineral resource estimate indicate a very high probability that these holes will contain significant grades of copper.
Finely laminated massive iron and copper sulphides at 28.2 metres depth in hole CD21-003. Scale bar = 5cm.
Forward plan
PolarX intends to evaluate the economic viability of trucking copper mineralisation from Caribou Dome to potential processing plant sites at its wholly-owned Zackly copper-gold deposit.
Metallurgical test-work to evaluate processing options for the Zackly copper-gold-silver mineralisation is already underway in Perth, Western Australia.
Notably, multiple high-priority targets based on surface geochemical soil sampling and IP survey remain undrilled.
Therefore, there is considerable potential to discover additional high-grade mineralisation and to continue to expand the resource base at the project.
- Ephrems Joseph