StrikePoint Gold has reported the commencement of drilling on the Pluto Gold Project.
Initial drilling activity is focused on the northerly Charon target where a total of six RAB holes are planned, after which the drill will be relocated to the southerly Hydra target for an additional four holes. Both targets have high-grade soil assays that are coincident with geophysical anomalies.
Charon consists of a soil anomaly with samples running up to 15,342 ppb gold with complimentary rock grab samples assaying up to 7.11g/t gold, and stretching for 1.2km east to west. It is proposed that these anomalous soils are related to several layers of mineralized limestone that was mapped in 2012. These limestones have been altered by hydrothermal fluids from successive intrusions of volcanic dykes into the sedimentary package.
The mineralization model of the Hydra target is not well understood at this point, yet it appears to be a series of gold-bearing quartz veins in silicified biotite schist. This has resulted in soil samples returning grades up to 3,427 ppb Au over an area 1km by 1km.
The Charon and Hydra targets are situated 6km from each other, with the ground in between exhibiting similar gold in soil anomalies, namely on the 'Stix' and 'Nix' targets. It is currently assumed that Charon and Hydra form the northern and southern boundaries of a large, potentially mineralized zone.
An Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical survey undertaken by Groundtruth Exploration in June 2017 highlighted several low resistivity anomalies that are coincident with the high-grade soil and rock chip samples at surface. These anomalies also show an apparent dip which is like that of the surrounding sedimentary units.
Drill holes will be between 100m to 150m in depth to test both the shallow and deeper geophysical anomalies.
The Pluto Property
The Pluto property is in the Kluane region, and is one of the largest in StrikePoint's portfolio, approximately 40 x 30km in size, 100km southwest of Carmacks. Pluto sits relatively close to the latest discoveries in the White Gold district, and is aligned along strike with this group of projects. However, initial analysis of the geology seems to show a unique mineralizing style for the area; the formation of skarns in contact with large, regional 'ring' dyke volcanic features.
The presence of a shallowly dipping 'dirty' limestone unit in the local lithology has become a focus for mineralization when intercepted by dykes of rhyolitic / dacitic material. The skarns are identified by anomalous gold-in-soil results where they outcrop in the sides of the valleys, which indicates that there is volume potential of the mineralization, a hypothesis that will be drill tested in 2017.