Option to earn a 50% interest from Freegold Ventures Limited.
The Project is located in the Kuskokwim Mineral Belt, a northeast trending belt of intrusion related gold deposits that includes the 39 million ounce Donlin Creek deposit and the past producing Nixon Fork gold mine.
The project is located in the McGrath Mining District in the Kuskokwim region of central Alaska. The Kuskokwim region is underlain by sedimentary rocks of the Upper Cretaceous Kuskokwim Group that have been intruded by a suite of Late Cretaceous to Tertiary granitic rocks. Placer gold deposits are associated with several of these intrusions and recorded production totals 2.5 million ounces.
Gold mineralization was first discovered at Vinasale by Central Alaskan Gold Company (CAG) in 1989. Exploration from 1990 to 1993 by CAG and their joint venture partner, Placer Dome, consisted of soil sampling, geophysics, diamond drilling (5,285 metres in 39 holes) and metallurgy. The Project was subsequently optioned by ASA-Montague and additional soil sampling, diamond drilling (5,262 metres in 26 holes) and metallurgy were completed in 1994. Drilling intersected significant gold values beneath multi-element soil anomalies in the Northeast, Central and South zones (see Table). A resource of 925,000 ounces of gold (14.5 million tonnes grading 1.95 grams/tonne) was estimated for the Central Zone by Derry Michener, Booth and Wahl (1994) as part of a Prefeasibility study. (Note that the resource figures are historical in nature and are provide for information purposes only; they are not NI43-101 compliant and as such should not be relied upon).
Table 1: Selected drill intersections from the Vinasale deposit, central Alaska.
| Hole Number |
From (m) |
To (m) |
Interval (m) |
Gold (g/t) |
| VM90-01 |
66.20 |
157.58 |
91.38 |
1.63 |
| VM90-02 |
3.05 |
43.43 |
40.39 |
1.37 |
| VM90-03 |
18.90 |
71.63 |
52.73 |
2.46 |
| VM91-01 |
0.00 |
177.39 |
177.39 |
1.91 |
| VM91-03 |
1.01 |
171.91 |
170.90 |
0.89 |
| VM91-09 |
0.00 |
25.30 |
25.30 |
2.28 |
| VM91-28 |
37.03 |
54.25 |
17.22 |
1.76 |
| VM91-34 |
105.34 |
152.06 |
46.73 |
0.59 |
| VM91-35 |
0.00 |
36.58 |
36.58 |
0.98 |
| VM91-35 |
91.44 |
195.53 |
104.09 |
1.52 |
| VM94-01 |
12.19 |
183.18 |
170.99 |
1.14 |
| VM94-03 |
9.14 |
79.25 |
70.10 |
1.42 |
| VM94-03 |
153.92 |
187.45 |
33.53 |
1.44 |
| VM94-04 |
67.97 |
115.21 |
47.24 |
0.58 |
| VM94-05 |
197.51 |
218.24 |
20.73 |
1.67 |
| VM94-06 |
121.31 |
179.22 |
57.91 |
0.91 |
| VM94-07 |
25.30 |
179.83 |
154.53 |
1.91 |
| VM94-08 |
16.15 |
90.83 |
74.68 |
1.63 |
| VM94-10 |
0.00 |
117.81 |
117.81 |
1.38 |
| VM94-10 |
145.69 |
357.53 |
211.84 |
1.25 |
| VM94-11 |
82.30 |
313.94 |
231.65 |
2.06 |
| VM94-12 |
133.50 |
209.55 |
76.05 |
1.86 |
| VM94-13 |
25.91 |
169.16 |
143.25 |
1.81 |
| VM94-13 |
181.36 |
268.22 |
86.86 |
1.12 |
| VM94-18 |
49.68 |
373.08 |
323.40 |
1.36 |
| VM94-24 |
4.57 |
198.12 |
193.55 |
1.29 |
| VM94-26 |
78.64 |
150.27 |
71.63 |
1.04 |
Freegold entered into a Mining Exploration Agreement with an Option to Lease the Vinasale Project from Doyon Limited, an Alaskan Native Regional Corporation in 2007. Since that time, Freegold has completed an airborne survey and a regional geochemical survey and a ground based induced polarization and magnetic survey over the northern part of the deposit. This work has identified chargeability and resistivity targets associated with the northern edge of the Vinasale stock as well as regional targets that require follow-up exploration.
Western Standard plans an initial exploration program consisting of data compilation and verification to identify targets for follow up in 2010. The exploration program will include geophysics, geochemistry and diamond drilling with the objective of expanding the existing resource as well as identifying new areas that may have the potential to host additional resources. In addition to the exploration program, Western Standard will collect samples for metallurgical testwork. Western Standard is targeting large, bulk mineable gold deposits in their exploration program.
