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Early Zackly results show growth potential
MACLAREN RIVER: A cold summer rain drizzling down on the exploration camp does not dampen the spirits of PolarX Ltd. Executive Director Jason Berton ... and for good reason. Laid out across the tables in the core shack at the company's highway accessible exploration camp is gold- and copper-rich skarn mineralization from a hole drilled some 850 meters east of the current resource at the Zackly deposit on the company's Alaska Range project.
If ongoing drilling can trace this mineralization back to the 1,000-meter-long high-grade gold and copper deposit already outlined at Zackly, this would mark a major expansion of the resource the company recently upgraded to modern standards and go a long way toward supporting the Australia-based exploration company's strategy of building a sufficient copper‐gold inventory between Zackly and Caribou Dome to support a feasibility study on a combined operation on one or more stand‐alone operations.
"Whilst it's early days in our testing of the East Skarn zone, the significance with respect to potentially progressing into a feasibility is that strong mineralization observed in core from surface and 850 meters along strike from the Main Skarn JORC (Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee) resource is that we are a step closer to achieving the minimum resource threshold to justify an economic appraisal of Zackly," said Berton.
Australia-Alaska partnership
PolarX acquired the Stellar property early last year in a three-company deal that also involved Vista Minerals Pty Ltd., a privately held exploration company from Australia, and Millrock Resources Inc., a project generator with a portfolio of Alaska gold and copper exploration projects.
Merging Stellar with adjacent Caribou Dome property, already held by PolarX, the Down Under explorer focused its 2017 program on upgrading a historical resource for Zackly to Australian Joint Ore Reserves Committee mineral reporting standards.
Millrock Resources Inc., which owns a 9.76 percent interest in PolarX, is managing the exploration at Alaska Range.
Berton said this collaboration with Millrock is the first time he has attempted such a partnership and the local company's acumen is a key to the early success at Alaska Range.
"I can see that it may not always be possible to create such a partnership because I think Millrock is quite unique," Berton said. "Millrock is a professional outfit that knows the lay of the land both geologically and logistically which has enabled us the ability to plan and implement our programs efficiently and effectively. In my opinion it just would not have been possible for us to undertake Millrock's role ourselves without significant costs and disadvantages."