Ursa covers two distinct geochemical trends: a 9 kilometer (km) trend of elevated to anomalous gold in stream sediment and soil samples and a roughly parallel 14 km trend of elevated to highly anomalous zinc
Snowline Gold Corp (CSE:SGD) (OTCPINK:SNWGF) has released an update introducing its 100%-owned, 7,755-hectare Ursa gold and base metals project in the Selwyn Basin, Yukon Territory.
Ursa covers two distinct geochemical trends, the company said, a 9 kilometer (km) trend of elevated to anomalous gold in stream sediment and soil samples and a roughly parallel 14 km trend of elevated to highly anomalous zinc accompanied by elevated silver, copper, molybdenum, nickel and vanadium.
“Ursa adds a new dimension to Snowline’s exploration story,” Snowline Gold COO Scott Berdahl said in a statement. “The project covers two unique new target types in our prospective corner of the Selwyn Basin, each demonstrating a very large-scale mineralizing system. Although they are early stage, the proximity of Ursa to our flagship Rogue and Einarson exploration programs affords us an opportunity to efficiently test the potential of these big, blue-sky concepts.”
The Selwyn Basin is home to world-class base metal districts, such as Howard’s Pass and the Anvil district, both of which have similar stratigraphy to that of Ursa, the company said. The basin is also an important host to several types of gold deposit
Gold was discovered at Ursa in black shale hosted pyrite nodules by a previous operator searching for Carlin-style target, the company said. No major carbonate units were encountered, but subsequent analysis of field data by Snowline’s technical team determined that Ursa’s geological setting is similar to Russia’s Sukhoi Log deposit, in which gold is hosted in pyritic nodules and masses.
Ursa’s proximity to Snowline’s flagship Rogue and Einarson projects allows for efficient exploration during the 2021 field season, the company said. Geochemical sampling, prospecting and mapping are planned to better understand the sources of the gold and base metal anomalies. Based on these results, geophysical surveying, surface trenching and initial drill testing may be conducted later in the season.
The carbonaceous, passive margin shales in both areas have been compressed into a tight anticlinorium and later intruded in their vicinities by felsic plutons. At Ursa, these plutons are members of the Tombstone plutonic suite that drive the intrusion-related gold targets at Rogue. There has been very little, if any previous exploration for this deposit type in the Selwyn Basin.
The west side of the Ursa property covers a 14 km trend of elevated to highly anomalous base zinc and other metals thought to be associated with Devonian age enriched black shales. Of 45 historic stream sediment samples draining the length of the trend, 44 returned concentrations exceeding 0.1% zinc and 8 concentrations exceeding 1% Zn, to a maximum of 3.4% Zn. Concentrations of up to 0.48% nickel, up to 0.18% copper and up to 118.5 parts per million of molybdenum were also returned by this stream sediment sampling along the trend.
Previous first-pass contour soil sampling along a subsection of the trend revealed a zone 500 metre (m) to 1,500m wide along the length of the 6.7 km subsection wherein soils consistently exceed 5 grams per ton (g/t) of silver, the company said. A 2.7 km 43-sample contour soil line within this subsection had a median concentration of 14.8 g/t silver.
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