Drills to turn at White Gold

Vancouver — Placer Dome (PDG-T) and Grayd Resources (GYD-V) are about to launch a 1,200-metre drill program at the White Gold property near Tok, Alaska.

Placer, which is funding the program as part of its deal to earn up to a 70% stake in the property, inked an agreement earlier this year to earn a 51% interest by spending US$3.1 million over four years. Of this total, US$350,000 must be spent this year. The company can pick up an additional 19% interest by completing a bankable feasibility study.

Grayd will remain project operator this year, with Placer assuming that role in 2002.

Grayd acquired the 45-sq.-km property, which was previously known as Rumble Creek, in 1999 from American Copper & Nickel, a wholly owned subsidiary of Inco (N-T). In 1996, American Copper had identified an 8-km-long trend of gold-bearing quartz-carbonate shear zones over the claims.

The drill program, which is expected to start in late August, will test five target areas. The first of them is the Low-Flicka trend: at the Low showing, channel samples returned 8.6 grams gold over 9.8 metres and grab samples returned up to 61.4 grams gold. At the Flicka showing, channel samples yielded 2.2 grams gold over 2.7 metres.

At a second target, the Goldberg area, soil samples returned up to 4.1 grams gold, and talus grab samples returned up to 23 grams gold. Channel samples at a third target area, the Hunter showing returned 9.6 grams gold over 6.3 metres.

Two other target areas are geochemical anomalies. In the HD Area, a gold-antimony-arsenic soil anomaly extends over 2.3 km, and trench sampling turned up values as high as 3.9 grams gold over 16.4 metres. The Kokanee trend is a 2-km-long gold-in-soil anomaly with subcrops returning up to 5.2 grams gold.