The Portland Gold Project consists of 75 claims covering 1,525 hectares within the Dawson Mining Division located approximately 42 kilometers southwest of Dawson City, Yukon. The project is accessible by a network of summer roads from Dawson City.
The project is situated within the White Gold District and the Klondike placer area with extensive historic placer mining estimated to have exceeded 20 million ounces of gold. A series of parallel northwest trending gold bearing structures are present on the project including the Gold Run Fault. A 2010 trenching program across one of these structures identified a high-grade zone averaging 97.2 g/t gold over 7.0m. Six of seven samples from this trench returned values ranging from 27.0 g/t gold to 455.8 g/t gold. Notable projects within the greater White Gold district include White Gold Corp’s Saddle and Arc deposits located 75 km to the southeast, Newmont Goldcorp’s Coffee project located 100 km to the south and Golden Predator Mining Corp.’s Brewery Creek Mine located approximately 35 km to the northeast.
The 2010 trenching program discovered significant free-milling gold in four of six trenches. The gold occurs in quartz veins cutting altered schist. In 2011 seven NQ2 diamond core holes were drilled on the Project for a total of 975 m. Five of the seven holes had significant gold mineralization even with only select parts of each hole being assayed.
An examination of the geologic logs has identified a significant number of intervals above, between, and below the sampled intervals that contain quartz stockwork, quartz veining, and/or alteration that have never been sampled. The Company believes that the initial sampling was inadequate based on similar orogenic gold occurrences in the Yukon.
The 2011 drilling program focused on northwest trending structures, which are frequently anomalous in gold throughout the district, however, it is common for the best mineralization to occur in cross structures or at structural intersections as seen in several of the district’s discoveries and remains an untested target.
Additionally, the presence of galena, a lead-bearing mineral, was noted in the better drill intersections and this is significant given similar associations occur with gold at such locations as White Gold Corp.’s Vertigo discovery as well as other orogenic gold deposits elsewhere in the Yukon such as Golden Predator Mining Corp’s 3 Aces project. This makes lead an important pathfinder element which has not been adequately studied at Portland. Other important trace elements may also lead to better drill targeting.
Recommendations for further work include deeper auger style soil sampling, which has proven to be effective within the White Gold District and only preliminary and wide-spaced sampling of this type has been conducted on the property. Trenching would be suggested to follow up on anomalies, particularly when located at cross structures or structural intersections with the primary northwest trending structures.