ASX-listed base and precious metals explorer PolarX is gearing up to kick off a new round of diamond drilling at the Caribou Dome copper project, about 250km north-east of Anchorage in Alaska, USA. The company says it has locked in a drilling contractor for the program that is planned to start in August this year with an aggregate drill coverage of at least 1,500m.
The new drilling and ensuing metallurgical testwork are part of Perth-based PolarX’s farm-in arrangement enabling it to earn an 80 per cent interest in the project.
Caribou Dome boasts a JORC-compliant measured, indicated and inferred resource estimated at 2.8 million tonnes at an impressive grade averaging 3.1 per cent copper for 127,000 tonnes of contained copper.
According to PolarX, about 60 per cent of the deposit lies within 150m of surface and takes in a high-grade core of 935,000 tonnes going at 4.4 per cent copper.
Copper mineralisation at Caribou Dome occurs in nine known deformed lenses of fine-grained massive sulphide mineralisation extending from surface to depths of more than 300m.
PolarX’s latest drilling is set to provide a first-pass assessment of three recently identified exploration targets, each of which it says has the potential to host one or more lenses of massive sulphide mineralisation.
The three new undrilled targets have been prioritised following the company’s detailed review of earlier geochemical soil sampling results and 3D imaging of previous induced polarisation ground geophysical survey data.
PolarX says the triumvirate of prospects all sit less than 500m from known mineralisation and all display copper anomalies in surface soil samples and coincident 3D IP chargeability highs.
Four holes have also been earmarked to intersect known massive sulphide lenses at Caribou Dome to generate copper sulphide samples for metallurgical testing that will go towards advancing a proposed scoping study.
The company says the fresh samples will help it evaluate treatment options including the possible processing of a combination of trucked ore from Caribou Dome and ore from its neighbouring, 100 per cent-owned Zackly copper-gold project at a plant stationed at Zackly.
An inferred mineral resource estimate of 3.4Mt at average grades of 1.2 per cent copper and 2 grams per tonne gold for 41,200 tonnes of contained copper and 213,000 ounces of contained gold has been ascribed to the Zackly deposit.
With almost 20km of the stratigraphic horizon that PolarX says hosts the mineralisation in its project area, the company suggests there is considerable potential to expand the Caribou Dome resource base.
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By Matt Birney
