HighGold (TSX-V:HIGH, OTCQX:HGGOF) Mining Inc has announced very encouraging results for reconnaissance surface exploration sampling and drilling at its flagship Johnson Tract polymetallic gold project in Alaska, United States.
The Vancouver-based mineral exploration company shared results for the Milkbone, greater Difficult Creek (DC), Easy Creek (EC) and Kona regional prospects that are located within the northern half of the project area and two-to-seven kilometers (km) on trend from the 0.75 million ounces (Moz) indicated 10.9 grams per ton (g/t) gold equivalent (AuEq) JT Deposit mineral resource.
“We are seeing encouraging results across the length and breadth of the property and believe that systematic exploration will continue to generate new discoveries at Johnson Tract,” HighGold Mining CEO Darwin Green said in a statement.
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“The geological setting that was permissive in developing exceptional precious metal grades at the JT Deposit appears to extend across the greater property. This thesis is supported by the company's DC discovery hole which ranked No. 3 on the Opaxe global list of Top 10 Drill Holes of the Year (577.9 g/t Au and 2,023 g/t Ag over 6.4 meters (m) in drill hole DC21-010,” he added.
Green pointed out that this is the second time in three years that Johnson Tract has made the Top 10 best drill intersections list, placing No. 7 in 2019 in the company’s first drill program and only narrowly missing the list in 2020.
“With approximately $23 million in the treasury, HighGold (TSX-V:HIGH, OTCQX:HGGOF) is well funded to drill these new discovery-stage targets in 2022 while also following up on the highly successful 2021 drill program at Middle DC,” added Green. “We also look forward to completion of an updated mineral resource estimate for the JT Deposit that is due within the next three months and continuing with deposit expansion drilling as part of the greater 2022 exploration program.”
New regional target discovery highlights
HighGold completed geological mapping, sampling, and surveys in 2021 along with the resource expansion drill program with the objective of assessing the potential for new zones of high-grade mineralization across the district-scale property. The work successfully outlined multiple priority target areas for future drilling related to the prospective 6-km long regional Milkbone fault system.
An initial phase of scout drilling at Difficult Creek was also completed, in addition to the discovery of bonanza-grade mineralization at the Middle DC target area.
The company said the Milkbone prospect and the over 1 km corridor between it and the bonanza-grade drill hole DC21-010 intercept at the Middle DC prospect to the northeast has emerged as a “priority target area for the company with strong supporting surface geochemistry”, including soils up to 8.3 g/t Au and rock samples up to 184 g/t Au.
The regional Milkbone fault transects this target area and both it and related subsidiary faults appear to have an important control on mineralization and will be drill tested for the first time during the 2022 field season, said the company.
The Milkbone fault is also associated with gold mineralization at the Easy Creek prospect, located 6 km north of DC, where a large IP chargeability anomaly has been defined that is coincident with rock samples up to 29 g/t Au.
The firm said that taken collectively, these multiple layers of supporting data significantly enhance the priority of Easy Creek targets. The Kona prospect, bearing a similar geophysical signature to Easy Creek, is located somewhat lower stratigraphically than DC and the JT Deposit and may represent a portion of the deeper roots of the large-scale Johnson Tract mineralized system, added the company.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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