White Rock Minerals Ltd (ASX:WRM) has provided an update on its exploration program at the Last Chance Gold Prospect, located within its 100% owned Red Mountain Project in central Alaska.
The initial field strategy is to undertake a comprehensive program of geological reconnaissance across the entire Last Chance gold anomaly, measuring 15 square kilometres in area.
In conjunction with geological reconnaissance, a team of geologist samplers will undertake detailed soil geochemical sampling over the highly anomalous core area (>100ppb gold) defined by four contiguous first-order stream catchments that extend over 3.5 kilometres of strike length east-west.
Field work commenced June 15 with the establishment of a camp at Healy.
Crews have now completed 12 active days in the field with two days lost due to weather preventing helicopter access.
To date, the majority of the core area of interest as shown below has been covered with 1,185 soil samples collected and submitted to the laboratory for analysis.
Overall, a program of 3,000 soil samples is planned across the whole target area.
As expected, sampling is hampered by snow restricting access along gullies and north-facing slopes, but the summer thaw is progressing rapidly with systematic sample coverage on track for completion during July.
In addition to sampling, the geological reconnaissance team has collected and submitted 274 rock chip samples to the laboratory for analysis.
When results from the soil and rock chip samples come to hand they will assist management in fine-tuning the exploration program.
Based on the successful definition of detailed targets from the geological reconnaissance and geochemical sampling, the company is then planning to complete an initial 2000 metre program of diamond core drilling commencing in early August.
This is excellent timing with the gold price just pushing past the US$1800 per ounce mark yesterday.