BLACK
| Target Type: Intrusion-hosted gold |
| Location: Northwest Territories, Canada |
Overview
The Black property is located on Zenchuk Creek in the Flat River valley, 10 km north of the historical Cantung Mine, 7 km from the mine access road in the Tungsten District of the Tombstone Gold Belt. The area hosts a number of Cretaceous-age intrusions, which Rackla has determined are prospective for Reduced-Intrusion Related Gold System (RIRGS) occurrences. Historical mapping and sampling, which primarily focused on lead, zinc and tungsten exploration, returned a significant number of anomalous gold values, which were never fully evaluated. The Black property was acquired by claim staking in the summer of 2023.
Property Tenure
Rackla Metals staked the Black property claims in NWT in June 2023 and owns 100% of the mineral claim rights. The property consists of six mineral claims measuring 7,000 hectares.
Exploration History
The first documented exploration in the region was in 1961, when Canada Tungsten Mining Corp. explored for tungsten in the region after the discovery of the Cantung tungsten deposit.
In 1978, prospector Alex Black staked the Jay 1 to 12 claims and conducted limited exploration consisting of hand-blast trenching, and collecting nine trench samples. The samples returned up to 4.16% lead, 4.96% zinc, 33 g/t silver and 8.16 g/t gold from a variety of mineralization types. The claims were later allowed to lapse.
Black returned to the site in 1981 to stake the Mona 1 claim, excavated two more trenches and collected 12 rock samples. This program returned one sample that graded 5.83 g/t gold and another that graded 4.80 g/t gold.
In 1983, Black conducted more trenching on the Mona 1 claim and collected eight more samples. Highlights from this work included values of 8.57, 4.66, 4.53 and 3.50 g/t gold. The source of the gold mineralization was described as arsenopyrite-rich veins in phyllite, black shales and quartzites near the margins of a granite intrusive.
The property was optioned by Goldex Resource Inc. in 1984 and they conducted a program of rock and soil sampling, ground magnetic and VLF-EM surveys. The program defined an arsenic-in-soil anomaly that measures 400 m x 320 m overlying an area described as “large quartz stockworks”. Thirty-six grab and trench chip rock samples were collected during the program, with 13 of the 36 samples returning >0.5 g/t gold and the average of all samples from quartz-arsenopyrite veins being 1.303 g/t gold. The highest value obtained was 9.325 g/t gold from a 0.15 m chip sample. The property was later returned to Mr. Black.
In 1993, Black conducted additional blast trenching and collected six samples from the pits. Highlights from this program were two samples returning 27.5 g/t gold and 9.3 g/t gold.
Geological Setting
The Black property covers the western portion of the Cretaceous Shelf Creek Pluton, a quartz-monzogranite to granodiorite belonging to the Tay River Suite. The pluton intrudes and alters limestone of the Sekwi Formation and phyllite of the Vampire Formation.
Several gold-bearing quartz-arsenopyrite veins have been identified on a small portion of the property, where Alex Black and others have focused exploration work. The veins occur in the phyllitic rocks within a kilometer of the intrusive contact and within a halo that has been altered by the intrusion. Soil sampling has defined an arsenic anomaly that measures 400 x 320 m and is open to the south and east.
Historic trenching has returned 48 out of 77 rock samples that contain greater than 0.5 g/t gold and up to 27.5 g/t gold. The gold is generally associated with arsenic. One rock sample collected at the southern contact of the intrusion returned 1.8 g/t gold.
Exploration Target
Rackla believes the Black property has significant RIRGS potential.
The Shelf Creek Pluton exhibits classic magnetic response of a RIRGS occurrence – magnetic low centered on the intrusion with a magnetic high around the margins.
The quantity of gold-bearing quartz-arsenopyrite veins is encouraging and the percentage of samples returning greater 0.5 g/t gold are significant.
The historic work only analysed for a few selected elements, limiting the ability to draw a correlation with other RIRGS pathfinder elements. Rackla plans to establish a much larger soil sample grid covering the historic grid and well beyond in the Zenchuk Creek valley to determine the full extent of the mineralized area. The samples will be analyzed for a full suite of elements to test for RIRGS pathfinders. Rackla will also conduct an extensive prospecting and stream sediment sampling program on the property.
Maps
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