Blue Star Gold acquires gold target area at Avalliq Property, Nunavut
Blue Star Gold Corp. [TSXV: BAU; OTCQB: BAUFF; FSE: 5WP0], a leading explorer in Canada’s North, reported the expansion of the Roma Project through the staking of a significant new property, the Avalliq property, located in the West Kitikmeot Region of Nunavut. This property is particularly compelling due to its quality gold prospects and strategic location, being less than 2 km east of the proposed Grays Bay Road, which could significantly enhance future access and infrastructure development for the property.
Highlights: MOV prospect is very similar to the Roma Main target with historical trenching outlining a 2-metre-wide vein over 100 metres of strike; vein width samples average 8.4 g/t.
Silver Bullet prospect – visible gold; grab samples to 186.1 g/t Au; historical drill intercept 1.0 metre @ 13.4 g/t Au. Black Ice prospect –channel samples up to 11.4 g/t Au (11,370 ppb).
Cygnet Northern prospect – +10 g/t Au grab samples at surface. The last known work in the area occurred more than 20 years ago (2005), when the average gold price was ~USD$450/oz. versus the current gold price of +USD$3,300/oz.
Near drill-ready targets have been identified for follow-up exploration program.
“The expansion of our Roma Project with the staking of the Avalliq property adds a new, highly prospective and target-rich area to our exploration pipeline,” said Grant Ewing, CEO of Blue Star, “The high-grade gold grabs at surface, historically trenched high-grade MOV target, and numerous untested geophysical anomalies, suggest that we have added substantial discovery potential to our land position in the High Lake Belt. Furthermore, the proximity to the proposed road, less than two kilometres to the west, improves the accessibility of this property and positions us well for future development. We are looking forward to advancing this property to evaluate its full potential.”
The newly staked Avalliq property encompasses four significant gold prospects, including MOV, Silver Bullet, Cygnet Northern and Black Ice as discussed below. Rock units on the property include mafic to intermediate and intermediate to felsic volcanic units intruded by synvolcanic gabbro on the west and turbidites on the east. Both units are truncated in the north by a large granitoid body. Known gold showings are hosted in a dacitic to felsic volcanic rock package in a general northeast trend and in shallow dipping quartz veins hosted in diorite-granodiorite intrusive units. The latter style of mineralisation is very similar to Blue Star’s Roma Main target. Blue Stars Avalliq property covers 1,111.9 hectares of prospective ground.
The Avalliq property encompasses the northern portion of the historical BHP Cygnet Claims and the Echo Bay Mining Grumpy Claims. In 1984 Echo Bay discovered an auriferous quartz vein (the MOV vein, Plate 1) which led to detailed mapping, and a geochemical and geophysical work program, culminating in a trench-based resource estimation and a recommendation to drill that was never implemented (AR083662). BHP Minerals Canada carried out reconnaissance traverses in the area in 1986, 1987, and 1989. This initial work was documented by BHP in 1991 (AR083662) and consisted initially of reconnaissance traverses followed by grid establishment for mapping, mag-VLF and prospecting.
Work by BHP in 1993 and 1994 (AR083412) successfully identified two additional auriferous zones – Silver Bullet and Black Ice which are ~750 metres apart and lie along a northeast-trending shear structure that has been traced for ~3 km. The MOV vein lies along a sub-parallel structure ~2.5 km northeast of Silver Bullet.
The Silver Bullet zone is characterized by shear-hosted quartz vein in dacite/intermediate volcanics, traced over an 80-metre strike. Visible gold was noted in the vein which ranges from 0.5 – 1.5 metres in width. Chip samples returned grades from 1.43 g/t to 123 g/t Au over widths of 0.15-1.0 metre. One drill hole was completed into the Silver Bullet vein in 1995, resulting in 13.4 g/t Au over 1.04 metres. This result was never followed up with a subsequent program.
The Black Ice zone consists of several parallel to subparallel shear-hosted quartz veins with a strike length of 180 metres. Channel sampling completed by BHP returned grades ranging from 79 ppb to 11.4 g/t Au over widths of less than 0.5 metres. Four drill holes in 1995 tested the Black Ice structure with the best intercept of 13.7 g/t Au over 0.76 metres.
The Cygnet Northern prospect is defined by BHP sampling from 1989-1991 (AR083662) which returned 52% of the samples >1 g/t Au and 10% of the samples >10 g/t Au in an apparent northeast trend; inferred to be the northern extension of the Cygnet trend to the southwest.
In 2004 Pure Gold Minerals reported on a Fugro ‘Resolve’ airborne electromagnetic survey, ground geophysical surveys (UTEM), sampling and detailed mapping of select prospects (AR084667, AR084864). In total 170 rock samples including 114 chip and channel samples were collected. Approximately 25% of the samples contained highly anomalous concentrations of gold from 1 g/t to a high of 186.1 g/t. The highest grades were returned from the Silver Bullet vein.
Blue Star’s work consisted of data compilation in 2022 and 2023; ground truthing of known showings and magnetic survey interpretation on the Cygnet claims to the south in 2023; and prospecting the magnetics interpretation and a field visit to the MOV, Black Ice and Silver Bullet prospects in 2024; no field follow-up has yet been undertaken on the Cygnet Northern zone. The 2024 samples confirmed historical grades at the MOV, Silver Bullet, and Black Ice showings.
Initial work programs would include SkyTEM airborne electromagnetics and magnetics surveys, detailed stratigraphic and alteration mapping, and sampling select areas to advance the prospects to drill-ready targets for subsequent work programs.
Blue Star is focused in Nunavut, Canada. Blue Star’s landholdings total 300 km2 of highly prospective and underexplored mineral properties in the High Lake Greenstone Belt. The company owns the Ulu Gold Project, comprised of the Ulu Mining Lease and Hood River Property, and the Roma Project. A significant high-grade gold resource exists at the Flood Zone deposit (Ulu Mining Lease), and numerous high-potential exploration targets (gold and critical minerals) occur throughout the Company’s extensive landholdings, providing Blue Star with excellent resource growth potential. The site of the future deep-water port at Grays Bay is 40-100 km to the north of the properties, and the proposed route corridor for the all-weather Grays Bay Road passes close by the Roma and Ulu Gold Projects.