Mining News: Northern Neighbors: Auryn nearly doubles Nunavut land package

Auryn Resources Inc. June 20 said it has staked 162,000 hectares (400,000 acres) of claims at its Committee Bay gold project, expanding this land package to more than 380,000 hectares (939,000 acres). Auryn also has begun its summer exploration program, which will consist of roughly 10,000 meters of rotary air blast drilling focused on the Anuri and West Plain target at Committee Bay as well as regional till sampling across the entire project. During its spring program, Auryn collected airborne geophysical data at Anuri, a prospect that lies about midway along Auryn’s roughly 280-kilometer (175 miles) land package at Committee Bay. The company said a combination of magnetic, electro-magnetic, drone imagery, and geochemical datasets has identified high-priority drill targets at Anuri. Auryn President and CEO Shawn Wallace said, “We are very excited to commence our discovery-focused exploration program this summer. The Committee Bay project represents one of the largest, high-grade gold endowed greenstone belts in the world with several preliminary gold discoveries to date.” Additionally, Auryn said Rael Lispon, a former chief exploration geologist for Goldfields, has joined its technical team. During his 14-year tenure at Goldfields, Lipson was instrumental in the discovery of the Three Bluffs gold deposit at Committee Bay. “I am delighted to once again be associated with the Committee Bay project in Nunavut after an absence of some 13 years,” said Lipson. “This belt-scale play, which besides the 1.3-million-ounce Three Bluffs deposit, is still in the very early stages of exploration and promises significant untapped potential.”

-Shane Lasley