White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM, OTCQX:WRMCF)’s initial results from surface sampling at Pepper Prospect, around five kilometres west and along strike from the Last Chance target in Alaska, point to a new gold discovery.
Rock chip sampling at the prospect returned up to 6.5 g/t gold, indicating an Intrusion Related Gold System (IRGS) within the prolific Tintina Gold Province.
Tintina is host to giant gold deposits including Donlin Creek (45 million ounces), Pogo (10 million ounces) and Fort Knox (13.5 million ounces).
According to the company, mineralization extends over one kilometre of strike east-west and is open-ended.
Gold target
The follow up geological reconnaissance of gold stream sediment anomalies undertaken by the company identified new areas of silicification, veining and hydrothermal brecciation along trend from the large Last Chance gold system.
Pepper prospect consists of outcrop and sub-cropping including podiform quartz-cemented hydrothermal breccia with variably visible arsenopyrite and pyrite and zones of strongly silicified mica-schist along with quartz veins.
Recent assays from rock chip grab samples have returned up to 6.5 g/t gold from breccia samples that also contain over 27 parts per million silver (ppm) with less than 1% arsenic and more than 6,000 ppm antimony.
Additional rock and soil samples are still pending analysis from the laboratory.
Four distinct areas
The company has identified four distinct areas separated by talus cover and spanning one kilometre through soil sampling and prospecting.
Three of the areas are similarly hosted in Birch Creek quartz mica schists while the fourth appears to be structurally related and crosscuts a compositionally intermediate early Tertiary dyke system.
This dyke system trends east-west following a regional shear identified in airborne magnetics and regional mapping.
The gold-bearing breccia units trend in a more north-westerly pattern suggesting a possible conjugate system to the regional shear.
A ground magnetic survey has been completed over the area and results are pending.