Mining News: News Nuggets: Endurance eyes Elephant gold target

Endurance Gold Corp. April 20 said the 2013 and 2014 summer programs at its Elephant Mountain gold property in Interior Alaska confirmed an intrusive-hosted target area measuring at least 1,800 by 600 meters. This area includes an untested induced polarization chargeability anomaly, the Central Zone target, located between two gold-arsenic soil and rock sample anomalies, the North and South Zone targets. In 2014, Endurance completed 36 power-assisted auger soil samples at South Zone. These deep soil samples, between 0.81 and 1.52 meters, encountered up to 320 parts-per-billion gold. This work, together with shallower soil samples collected in 2013, have confirmed a continuous 600-meter long soil anomaly which exceeds 100 ppb gold. Endurance reports that previous exploration by Placer Dome in the 1990s identified a soil anomaly measuring about 1,000 meters by 300 meters, exceeding 20 ppb gold, in this same area which is now interpreted to have been offset from the bedrock source by downslope movement. Grab samples of 12.98 grams per metric ton, 5.21 g/t, 4.44 g/t, 3.02 g/t, and 2.59 g/t gold associated with iron oxide stained and altered granitic rocks have been collected at South Zone. In 1991, Placer Dome collected a grab sample from the target area that assayed 411.4 g/t gold. North Zone is a gold-arsenic soil geochemical anomaly that measures some 1,200 by 500 meters wide, with peak values of up to 1,540 ppb gold. Placer Dome drilled eight holes at this target, the best of which averaged 0.51 g/t gold over 99.4 meters. Seven grab samples collected by Endurance at North Zone have returned between 1.01 g/t and 1.92 g/t gold. Central Zone is a 1,500- by 500-meter IP target identified by Placer Dome that has never been tested with diamond drilling, and remains unexplained. Elephant Mountain is located in the Rampart-Manley Hot Springs area of Alaska about 76 miles west of Fairbanks. Endurance Gold is planning a 2015 program of power auger soil sampling focused on the Central and South zones to better define and prioritize drill targets.

- Shane Lasley