Junior
Ogopogo is one of five exploration-stage properties that Gerald Carlson, president of Copper Ridge, acquired several months ago from Kinross in exchange for 1 million shares. The properties formerly belonged to La Teko Resources, which merged with Kinross in February and of which Carlson was president.
Kinross acquired La Teko on the basis of its advanced-stage Ryan Lode and True North gold deposits, both of which are within easy trucking distance of Kinross’s Fort Knox mill, near Fairbanks.
Ogopogo comprises 36,000 acres and adjoins the northern boundary of the Pogo project, held jointly by
Copper Ridge has sub-divided the Ogopogo property into four separate blocks. Kinross will have the right to earn an initial 55% interest in the Northern Cross block by making an initial cash payment and spending US$1 million in exploration over four years. Kinross will then have the option of earning an additional 20% by incurring a further US$2 million in expenditures.
Copper Ridge intends to explore one of the areas, dubbed Indian Creek, on its own behalf, and is considering offers to farm out the Goodpaster and Glacier Creek blocks.
Last summer, a staking blitz ensued around the Pogo discovery. Most stakers initially focused on staking along an interpreted northwest-southeast trend of the property, whereas La Teko set its sights on the area immediately north of Pogo.
Geologically, Ogopogo is the mirror image of Pogo, Carlson says: “It has the same geology, same structures, same age intrusives and nice geochemistry.”
Stream-sediment and pan concentrate samples collected by the U.S. Geological Survey identified anomalous bismuth and tungsten in streams draining the Ogopogo area. Bismuth values of up to 500 parts per million (ppm) and tungsten values of up to 3,000 ppm were obtained from the Indian Creek and Glacier Creek drainages.
To confirm previous results, Copper Ridge has proposed a US$30,000 first phase of exploration consisting of stream-sediment and heavy mineral concentrate sampling, plus some prospecting and preliminary mapping.
The company also intends to explore the Scheelite Dome gold property in the central Yukon. Copper Ridge can earn acquire the property from Kennecott Canada Exploration by spending $800,000 on exploration by Dec. 31, 2001. (La Teko incurred about $400,000 in expenditures in 1998.) Kennecott, a division of London-based
Kennecott is still required to spend about $2 million exploring the property. Several strong gold-in-soil anomalies were found to extend over a distance of 6 miles along an east-westerly trend. The most prominent anomaly measures 2.5 by 0.9 miles, while a second, partially defined anomaly sits 1.2 miles due east on a key structural trend and is roughly 1.9 by 1.2 miles in size.
Kennecott trenched the main anomaly and drilled 13 reverse-circulation holes. Although the holes encountered anomalous gold mineralization, the silicified nature of the rocks created drilling problems for Kennecott, and the holes were cut short of their target.
La Teko completed an induced-polarization survey in 1998, followed by seven widely spaced diamond drill holes. The best hole encountered 25.3 ft. averaging 0.11 oz., starting at a depth of 53.7 ft. in hole 12.
Hole 11 was drilled downdip of hole 12 so as to test a chargeability anomaly. The hole ended in mineralization, returning 39.8 ft. grading 0.031 oz. from a down-hole depth of 328.5-368.3 ft. Based on a re-interpretation of the geophysics, Carlson believes the hole may have come up short of the anomaly.
Drilling is to resume at Scheelite Dome no later than the end of July, when a 6,500-ft. program will begin.
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