Mining News: Millrock, Kinross eye Tetlin-style skarns at Liberty Bell

Millrock Resources Inc. July 6 announced the start of a sampling and prospecting program at its Liberty Bell gold project in the Bonnifield Mining District of Interior Alaska. In March, Kinross Gold Corp. entered into an option agreement with Millrock on Liberty Bell. To earn a 70 percent joint venture interest in the property, Kinross must fund US$5 million of exploration and maintenance costs over five years; pay up to US$145,000 in fees for any project management carried out by Millirock; and pay advanced royalty payments of US$145,000 over the five-year earn-in period. Millrock will act as the exploration operator for the 2017 program at Liberty Bell. This initial program will consist of 16 sampling days with ten soil samplers and geologists collecting a planned 5,000 soil samples to characterize the surface geochemistry. These geologists will also be completing mapping and prospecting while they are in the field. A small gold deposit at Liberty Bell has striking geological similarities to the high-grade Peak zone skarn deposits being advanced by a partnership between Royal Gold and Contango Ore on their Tetlin property near Tok. The exploration at Liberty Bell is targeting distal skarn gold deposits and possibly porphyry copper-gold deposits.

–SHANE LASLEY