Radius Gold Inc. (TSX-V: RDU) has announced results for the exploration program conducted at the Sixty Mile project in west central Yukon, located some 75 km west of Dawson City at the Canada/US border.
The exploration program had 2 objectives:
- to discover the source of the placer gold mined from the creeks draining the hillsides of border ridge, an area of over 100 square kilometers, and
- to test the strongly altered volcanic rocks that are known to exist in the Sixty Mile valley for epithermal gold potential.
After a summer conducting airborne geophysics, geological mapping and extensive soil sampling programs, a preliminary drill program of seven holes, for a total of 1,607m, tested the two target areas. Five holes (DDH10-1 to 5) were drilled into the meta-sediments. Three of these five holes intersected gold-bearing quartz/sulfide veins and veinlets hosted by quartzite units in the metasediments.
Two drill holes (DDH10-6 &7) targeted the altered volcanics in the valley. Both intersected broad intervals of low grade gold mineralization associated with carbonate/sulfide veining in propylitic to argillic altered andesite.
Holes DDH10-4&5 tested separate structural targets on the hillside with no significant gold results returned.
Simon Ridgway said, "Identification of orogenic gold mineralization within the brittle siliclastic metasediments is highly encouraging. The host units are extensive, and there are multiple beds of quartzite hosting cross cutting, gold bearing veins. With only 4 core holes drilled into this unit to date anomalous gold has been encountered over down hole widths of up to 79m. This unit appears to be the source of the extensive placer gold in the Sixty Mile region and further work on the target is definitely warranted."
The epithermal target in the valley also has excellent potential. The altered volcanic rocks have been mapped, associated with the 60 Mile graben fault, for a strike length of over 7km and over widths of 2km. Holes DDH10-6 & 7 both returned strongly anomalous values over widths of up to 75m associated with argillic alteration. A geophysical program targeting silicification will be completed as a precursor to next year's drill program on the sizeable valley gold target.
Background
The road accessible property, which consists of 899 Yukon Quartz Claims covering approximately 180 sq.km. and 30 Alaska State claims covering 14 sq.km., straddles the Yukon/Alaska border. Radius has a 100% interest in the property through staking and various option/earn-in agreements with several underlying property owners, extensively the placer miners in the region.
Qualified Person
Roger Hulstein, a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for the accuracy of the technical information in this news release, and for overseeing the design and execution of Radius's Sixty Mile exploration program.
Source: Radius Gold Inc.