Pacific Ridge Exploration plans to begin 2016 with a healthy treasury and its portfolio of Yukon gold and base metal projects in good standing.
Exploration plans for 2016 include a surface evaluation of its Eureka Dome property. Eureka Dome is road accessible, at the southern end of Yukon’s Klondike Gold District and in the heart of the White Gold District.
The property is drained by several placer gold bearing creeks including Eureka Creek and Black Hills Creek. In 2010 and 2011, the Company completed a preliminary evaluation of the property, including prospecting and reconnaissance ridge and spur soil sampling. That program identified several areas anomalous in gold and pathfinder elements and hydrothermal alteration. Our 2016 program will initially include prospecting and grid soil sampling followed by high resolution geophysical surveys. The objective of the program is to define targets for drill testing.
The Company is also continuing an active program of new project evaluations with a focus on gold and copper in western and northern Canada.
The Company’s 100 percent owned Fyre Lake copper-gold-cobalt massive sulphide project in the Yukon’s Finlayson Lake District is under option to MinQuest Limited, a publicly listed Australian company. To date, the Fyre Lake Kona Deposit has been defined by 115 holes totaling over 23,200 metres of diamond drilling. A NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate of the Kona Deposit reported in 2006 includes an indicated mineral resource of 3.571 million tonnes grading 1.57% copper, 0.10% cobalt and 0.61 grams gold per tonne at a 1% copper cut-off grade. In addition, an inferred mineral resource, at the same cut-off grade, includes 5.361 million tonnes grading 1.48% copper, 0.08% cobalt and 0.53 grams gold per tonne. These estimates were prepared by D. Blanchflower, P.Geo., of Minorex Consulting Ltd., who is the qualified person for this purpose. The Company is currently waiting to hear of MinQuest’s 2016 plans for the property.
The Company’s 280 km2 Mariposa gold project covers the prolific Scroggie and Mariposa placer gold creeks located east of the Coffee Gold Project. Mariposa has seen a $6 million program of soil sampling, trenching and drilling carried out over the past five years that resulted in discovery of a number of well-mineralized gold zones. In addition the Company’s 49 km2 Gold Cap property, with yet-to-be drill tested gold soil anomalies, adjoins the Kinross White Gold deposit.