PolarX Limited (ASX: PXX) has mobilised its field team to the Humboldt Range Gold-Silver Project in Nevada, with fieldwork expected to commence by the end of this week.
The Humboldt Range Project is situated between two large-scale active mines: the Florida Canyon gold mine and the Rochester silver-gold mine.
It contains geology consistent with bonanza-style epithermal gold-silver mineralisation and bulk mineable epithermal gold-silver mineralisation, both of which are well known in Nevada. The claims have been owned by the same family since the 1950’s and very limited exploration has been reported. Access to the project is straightforward via roads off the I-80 Interstate Highway, which lies less than 15km to the west.
Widespread narrow vein mineralisation with visible gold occurs in the claims and was historically mined via numerous adits and underground workings between 1865 and the 1927. Mineralisation occurs in swarms of high-grade epithermal quartz veins of varying thickness (reported from 1cm to 3m), either as isolated veins or as zones of sheeted/anastomosing veins within zones of intensely altered and mineralised host rocks.
Key findings of early-stage exploration undertaken between 2005 and 2009 are:
- Epithermal quartz veins carrying precious and base metals occur in volcanic rocks in very wide structural corridors varying from 30m to 275m width.
- The veins in these wide structural corridors are oriented N60E (200-275m wide structural system), N45W (140-200m), ~ N-S (100-130m), and N25-30E (60-100m).
- Within the structural corridors there are hundreds of quartz-sulphide veins that carry visible gold and which range in width from 5cm to over 1.5 meters.
- Host rocks are strongly silicified over widths up to 5 times the thickness of the veins or more.
- Previous studies have indicated that the strongly altered host rock can also carry good gold values up to 2m away from 20-30cm wide veins.
Managing Director, Dr Frazer Tabeart, saidPolarX plans to evaluate the length and continuity of the vein sets and determine whether the altered rock between the veins contains economically viable grades of gold and silver amenable to bulk mining.
This will include geological mapping, rock chip and channel sampling, soil sampling and may also include ground or airborne geophysics.
