Goldstrike strikes again at Plateau South in Yukon

VANCOUVER — Goldstrike Resources (TSXV: GSR) is gaining traction over a new gold district at its Plateau South project, 300 km east of Dawson City, Yukon, as recent drilling has expanded its high-grade gold targets.

The drill program targeted extensions of an outcropping quartz vein at its Goldstack zone and returned 13.3 grams gold per tonne over 17.5 metres true width from 22 metres deep, including 35.3 grams per tonne over 5.7 metres true width.

Another drill hole returned 2.4 grams gold over 38.1 metres true width from 25 metres deep, including 8.1 grams gold over 10.2 metres true width.

William Chornobay, chief operating officer, tells The Northern Miner during a phone interview that the drill intercepts confirm that the vein and its stockworks widen downdip and extend to at least 95 metres.

“Our drilling has demonstrated that there’s continuity there,” he says. “We bottomed in mineralization, so it’s definitely given us some bulletproof targets for follow-up next year.”

He says the drill results are “exceptional” and show the property “climbs the ladder very quickly,” adding that “there wasn’t a single Minfile or claim staked anywhere on that property until we showed up in 2012. To date we’ve only spent 15 weeks exploring with our boots on the ground, and everything we do seems to return impressive results.”

The discovery outcrop at the Goldstack zone consists of a 7-metre-wide quartz vein along a 4 km northwest gold-showings trend flanking the Hess River valley and adjacent tributaries.

The Gold Dome — located 17 km east of Goldstack at a 1,770-metre elevation — was also drilled mid-year, and aimed for various blind targets across 450 square metres, including step-outs along a 2013 discovery hole that returned 7.6 grams gold over 9 metres.

Intercepts returned 9.1 grams gold over 1.5 metres near surface and defined new mineralized zones downhole, including 12.7 grams gold over 0.5 metre at 117 metres deep.

Sitting between the Gold Bank and Gold stack zones is an 11 km long undrilled target called the “Gold Bank,” which boasts grab sample grades up to 639.8 grams gold.

“The mineralization we’re seeing at Plateau South is part of a large zone of deformation that’s on a district scale of at least 25 km,” he says. “It’s a unique opportunity to have something of this size, and the project keeps getting better.”

But what impresses Chornobay the most is how Goldstrike chief geologist and director Trevor Bremner and the rest of the technical team have executed the exploration programs.

“We’ve been sticklers about compiling our data and looking at all variables to determine the best approach for our programs,” he says. “What we’ve accomplished so far is a reflection of careful planning in order to generate something meaningful.”  

Meanwhile, the intrigue for Bremner — a former chief geologist for the Yukon Geological Survey — is the property’s mineralization.

“I haven’t seen anything like this before. None of us has,” Bremner says. “This is all totally new and radically different for this part of the Yukon — it’s an original discovery.”

He explains that mineralization was emplaced in veins and stockworks at mid-crustal levels during thrust faulting and deformation that he estimates happened in the late Jurassic.

He adds that the property lies within the Selwyn basin — an area largely explored in the 1970s for its shale-hosted, lead-zinc-silver deposits, and porphyry tungsten deposits around younger Cretaceous intrusions.

“There are some people who assume our mineralization is related to those younger porphyries, but this is certainly not the case,” he says. “We’ve had a number of experts look at the property, and all the evidence points to a meso-thermal lode gold style system.”

Chornobay didn’t reveal details of a follow-up drill program, which could start in first-quarter 2016, but says the property is gaining attention.

“We’ve had a great deal of interest from all the right places,” he says. “So we’re going to weigh our options going forward, but we’re confident that the project is advancing in the right direction, and we’re all very excited.”

Goldstrike shares have traded within a 52-week range of 13¢ to 15¢, and closed at 15¢ at press time. The company has 97.7 million shares outstanding for a $14.2-million market capitalization.