PolarX has been quick to get more samples to the lab after previous samples from its Humboldt Range project in Nevada threw up some crazy grades including 3,384 grams per tonne gold and 2,837 g/t silver.
Spectacular grades of up to 22.9 per cent lead and 3.1 per cent zinc were also present.
The company says it is now eagerly awaiting assays from the new samples which it says are progressing well through the system.
The samples from the widespread outcropping epithermal vein systems in the Humboldt Range in Nevada should be just the warmup act ahead of a wider summer drilling campaign for PolarX that will likely target gold and silver in addition to zinc and lead.
There are two established neighbouring high-grade gold-silver mines near Humboldt Range – Florida Canyon for 5 million ounces of gold west of PolarX’s Black Canyon claims and Rochester that boasts 400 million ounces of silver and 3m ounces of gold south of the company’s 4th of July claims.
PolarX said the project takes in 273 lode mining claims and the broader range contains geology consistent with bonanza-style epithermal gold-silver as well as bulk mineable epithermal gold-silver mineralisation.
The company said: “The claims have been owned by the same family since the 1950s and only limited exploration has been reported.”
Access into the two groups of leases is on roads that run off the 1-80 Interstate Highway which is less than 15km west of the claims.
Earlier work by Renaissance Exploration Inc on limited vein sampling, soil sampling and mapping in the central part of Fourth of July five years ago is being incorporated into PolarX’s database for the purposes of verification.
So far the company has taken 73 rock-chip samples from the Black Warrior, Jackson, Lucky Dog and Cottonwood veins in the Arizona Canyon mining area.
Contractors are now collecting ultrahigh-resolution drone orthophotography and digital terrain mapping for use in 3-D base maps.
PolarX said integration of all exploration data, including assays to define preliminary drill targets, is expected in July-August, allowing drill permitting to start in August for a potential drill campaign in the December quarter.
Meanwhile, at Caribou Dome in Alaska the company has been buoyed by the strengthening copper price which is bearing down on US$10,000 per tonne and the importance of the adjacent Zackly copper-gold project. PolarX is undertaking metallurgical tests to determine how both deposits could be combined into one ore processing operation.
Caribou Dome already has a measured to indicated resource of 2.8 million tonnes grading 3.1 per cent copper. The copper is in massive sulphide lenses and remains open along strike and at depth.
PolarX said over one-third of the known resource is less than 150 metres from surface at an average grade of 4.4 per cent copper.
The northern summer drilling at Caribou Dome is expected to start in August.
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By Matt Birney
