VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Nov. 16, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Trifecta Gold Ltd. (TSX-V: TG ) (“Trifecta” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce the results from 2017 exploration programs at its wholly-owned Eureka, Triple Crown and Treble properties in the Dawson Range Gold Belt of western Yukon.
“Results from the 2017 exploration programs on our wholly-owned Yukon properties are very encouraging and the Company looks forward to building on these advancements in 2018,” stated Dylan Wallinger, Trifecta’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “We have successfully expanded known anomalies and have identified high quality drill targets.”
Eureka
Trifecta’s road accessible Eureka property is located in the legendary Klondike Goldfields, 110 km by road south of Dawson City. It lies directly on the proposed haulage road for Goldcorp’s Coffee Deposit, between Klondike Gold Corp.’s Klondike project and White Gold Corp.’s Black Hills property. Eureka is underlain by metasedimentary rocks belonging to the Yukon-Tanana Terrane and has never been glaciated. The property straddles the headwaters of Black Hills and Eureka creeks, two of the most productive placer creeks in the southern part of the Klondike Goldfields with reported gold production totaling about 200,000 ounces between 1978 and 2016.
There are five known mineral showings on the Eureka property, three of which are drill-ready targets, and all of which appear to host gold in a series of gently to moderately dipping breccia zones that have been partially delineated by mineralized trenches and drill holes. Historical work on the property includes: mapping; prospecting; soil sampling; hand and mechanized trenching (5818 m in 38 trenches); ground and airborne geophysical surveying; reverse circulation (RC) drilling (4174 m in 41 holes); and diamond drilling (1188 m in 8 holes). Highlight results from drilling include a bulk tonnage intercept of 0.59 g/t gold over 18.3 m, and a high grade intercept of 9.99 g/t gold over 1.5 m.
Soil sampling in 2017 expanded a previously outlined 6 km long by up to 2.5 km wide northwesterly-elongated gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly to the northwest and southeast by 1000 m in each direction, increasing its length to 8 km. Four hundred and forty-three soil samples were collected in 2017, with anomalous values ranging from 20 to 545 ppb gold-in-soil. This northerly elongated belt of extensive gold-in-soil geochemical anomalies is open to extension in most directions and much of the property has not yet been sampled. Very limited prospecting has been done in the vicinity of the strongly anomalous gold-in-soil locations and this remains a high priority for future work.
The Eureka property is favourably located, but has received surprisingly little drilling and trenching considering the size and strength of its soil geochemical anomaly and the abundance of placer gold in creeks draining the property. Placer mining is ongoing in the area, and gold recovered from the upper reaches of both Eureka and Black Hills creeks is described as a mixture of coarse and fine, generally angular grains, with some grains containing inclusions of dark quartz while others are attached to larger white quartz fragments. All of these attributes suggest the gold is near source. Future work should include additional grid soil sampling followed by excavator trenching and/or track-mounted RC or rotary air blast drilling and diamond drilling.
Triple Crown
The Triple Crown property is located midway between Goldcorp’s Coffee Deposit and Rockhaven Resources’ Klaza Deposit, near Western Copper and Gold’s proposed Casino Project access road. The property hosts numerous strong multi-element soil geochemical anomalies, none of which have been tested by drilling or mechanized trenching. Historical results from Triple Crown include a 2015 rock sample assaying 6680 g/t silver, 30.22% lead and 0.80 g/t gold, and a 2016 hand trench returning 570 g/t silver, 2.76% lead and 0.08 g/t gold over 6.4 m.
Exploration at Triple Crown in 2017 consisted of mapping, prospecting and hand trenching. In 2017, a total of 603 grid and contour soil samples were collected from the central and northeastern parts of the property. This sampling expanded existing soil geochemical anomalies and generated new targets for follow-up work. Peak values from this sampling were 137 ppm silver-in-soil, 11,250 ppm lead-in-soil and 232 ppb gold-in-soil with strongly elevated values for antimony, bismuth, copper, molybdenum and zinc.
Prospecting on the property in 2017 returned encouraging results for silver, lead and gold. Two composite chip samples collected in the vicinity of the 2016 and 2017 hand trenches returned 1465 g/t silver, 52.52% lead and 0.176 g/t gold and 1360 g/t silver, 49.41% lead and 0.434 g/t gold, respectively, while prospecting in an under-explored part of the property, west of the hand trenching area, produced a grab sample returning 3.78 g/t gold and 281 g/t silver with low values for lead.
In 2017, four hand trenches were attempted, but frozen ground hindered productivity and only TR-17-01 reached bedrock. Trench TR-17-01 was excavated along the same topographic linear as TR-16-18, which failed to reach bedrock due to permafrost. A chip sample from this trench returned 197 g/t silver, 7.17% lead and 0.228 g/t gold over 1 m.
Future work on the Triple Crown property will focus on delineating known mineralization both along strike by prospecting and hand trenching, and down-dip by drilling. Additional prospecting and soil sampling is required as much of the property remains untested.
Treble
The Treble property lies in the centre of the Dawson Range Gold Belt in western Yukon, about 55 km southeast of Goldcorp’s Coffee deposit, near the proposed Casino Project access road and 8 km northwest of Triple Crown. The Treble property is underlain by Late Devonian to Mississippian Nasina Assemblage metasediments, which were intruded by Pelly Gneiss Suite plutons prior to regional deformation. Together, these units form the basal package that was intruded by Middle to Late Cretaceous granites and cut by Late Cretaceous to Tertiary felsic dykes belonging to the Prospector Mountain Suite. The Treble property hosts multi-element soil geochemical anomalies and vein- and breccia-style mineralization.
Pre-2017 work included prospecting, soil sampling and airborne magnetic and radiometric geophysical surveys. This work identified three multi-element soil geochemical anomalies (Anomalies A, B and C). These anomalies have returned anomalous values up to 1060 ppb gold-in-soil, 1045 ppm arsenic-in-soil and 24 ppm antimony-in-soil. Anomaly A hosts a 100 by 120 m zone of hydrothermal quartz breccia float. The hydrothermal breccias are characterized by dark grey siliceous matrix with vugs filled with arsenopyrite, stibnite and limonite and rare scorodite staining. A rock sample of hydrothermal breccia collected within Anomaly A returned 14.15 g/t gold, 684 ppm antimony, 3060 ppm barium and greater than 1% arsenic.
Trifecta’s 2017 exploration program focused on the northeastern part of the property, within and west of Anomaly A, while minor prospecting was completed within Anomaly C. The program comprised closely spaced grid soil sampling, prospecting and 31 m of hand trenching. Soil sample results from this work were encouraging with peak values of 135 ppb gold-in-soil, 456 ppm arsenic-in-soil and 9 ppm antimony-in-soil. The best rock sample collected in 2017 was a specimen of limonitic hydrothermal breccia from within Anomaly A, which yielded 0.885 g/t gold, 1170 ppm arsenic and 41 ppm antimony. The hand trench did not reach bedrock; however, a composite sample of float specimens within the trench returned 0.290 g/t gold, 387 ppm arsenic and 14 ppm antimony across 3 m.
Trifecta would like to thank the Government of Yukon and the Yukon Geological Survey for awarding Yukon Mineral Exploration Program grants to the Company for the 2017 work programs on the Triple Crown and Treble properties.
QAQC
Sample preparation for the Eureka, Triple Crown and Treble properties in 2017 was carried out by ALS Minerals with sample preparation in Whitehorse, Yukon and geochemical analyses in North Vancouver, British Columbia. Rock and soil samples were analyzed for 35 elements by aqua-regia acid digestion and analyzed by Inductively Coupled Plasma-Atomic Emission Spectroscopy (ME-ICP41). Rock samples from the Triple Crown property were analyzed for 48 other elements by four acid digestion and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ME-MS61). Overlimit values were determined for silver, lead and zinc by four acid digestion and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectroscopy (ME-OG62). Overlimit analysis for samples with lead greater than 20% were completed by acid dissolution and titration (Pb-VOL70). All samples were analyzed for gold by fire assay fusion and inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry (Au-ICP21), except for rock samples from the Treble property which were analyzed for gold by a 50 g fire assay fusion followed by atomic absorption spectroscopy (Au-AA24).
The 2017 programs were managed by Archer, Cathro & Associates (1981) Limited (“Archer Cathro”). Technical information in this news release has been approved by Heather Burrell, P.Geo., a geologist with Archer Cathro and a qualified person for the purpose of National Instrument 43-101.
About Trifecta Gold Ltd.
Trifecta is a Canadian precious metal exploration company dedicated to increasing shareholder value through the acquisition and development of attractive exploration projects in Canada and other mining-friendly jurisdictions.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
“Dylan Arnold-Wallinger”
President and Chief Executive Officer
For further information concerning Trifecta or its various exploration projects please visit our website at www.trifectagold.com or contact:
Corporate Information Trifecta Gold Ltd. Dylan Wallinger President and CEO Tel: (604) 687-2522
This news release may contain forward looking statements based on assumptions and judgments of management regarding future events or results that may prove to be inaccurate as a result of exploration and other risk factors beyond its control, and actual results may differ materially from the expected results.
N eit her t h e TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
