American Eagle Gold to drill Nak porphyry, British Columbia
American Eagle Gold Corp. [TSXV-AE; OTCQB-AMEGF] will begin a 15,000-metre drill program at its Nak copper-gold porphyry project, located in west-central British Columbia, Canada. The drill program is fully funded and will more than double the meterage the company drilled on the NAK project to date.
Highlights: The fully funded 15,000-metre drill program will commence in May. An Induced Polarization ground geophysical survey will begin in approximately three weeks that will aid in defining drill targets.Initial targets will focus on expanding and outlining near-surface potential and linking higher grade zones in the south to those in the north.
Some aims of the 2024 NAK drill program: Further define, expand, and link the high-grade North and South mineralized zones (north: 530 metres at 0.61% copper Equivalent (CuEq) in drillhole NAK23-12; south: 302.1 metres at 1.09% CuEq in drillhole NAK23-17.
Expand and outline near-surface potential, such as immediately west of the shallow high-grade encountered in NAK23-17, and similarly high-grade mineralization in historically untested or little-tested parts of the historical North zone, in the vicinity of the collars of NAK23-04, -07 and -12.
Extend the near-surface high-grade and gold-rich quartz chalcopyrite vein stockwork style mineralization along the eastern margin of the South Zone, including to depth and eastward, toward drill hole NAK23-09 (117.4m at 0.4% CuEq from surface).
The company also plans to undergo a nine-line Induced Polarization (IP) survey to assist with drill targeting this April. IP surveying has proven to be effective at targeting at NAK, and American Eagle’s best drillhole to date, NAK 23-17, which was the company’s final hole of the 2023 season, was largely targeted using an IP survey run immediately prior to drilling that hole. In addition, the data from the 2023 IP survey has since been modelled, in concert with historical IP and airborne magnetic data, and certain geophysical signatures and features appear to correlate well with elevated downhole CuEq grades-hence the expectation that it will aid in drill targeting.
The company has just completed an in-depth geological review of NAK with prominent economic geologist and porphyry specialist Dr. Alan Wilson, who has over 30 years of experience working on porphyry Cu-Au systems.
The NAK Project lies within the Babine copper-gold porphyry district of central B.C. It has excellent infrastructure, being accessed by a network of active all-season logging roads, and being supported by proximity not only by nearby logging camps, but also by the town of Smithers B.C., through which a cross-Canada rail line and a major Provincial Highway (Hwy. 16) pass.
The property is also close to the past-producing Bell and Granisle open pit Cu-Au mines. Historical drilling and geophysical, geological and geochemical work at NAK, which began in the 1960’s, tested only to shallow depths, but the work revealed a very large near-surface copper-gold system that measures over 1.5 km x 1.5 km. Drilling by the Company in 2022 and 2023 has returned significant intervals of high grade copper-gold mineralization that lie beyond the extent of historical drilling, indicating that a number of zones of near surface and deeper mineralization, locally with considerably higher grades, exist within the broader NAK property mineralizing system.
Teck Resources Ltd. [TSX-TECK.A, TECK.B; TECK-NYSE] made three separate equity investments in the company in 2023, helping to finance American Eagle who is fully funded for its 15,000-metre May drill program.