SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Exploration company TerraX Minerals hasn't finished its summer exploration plan at the Yellowknife City Gold Project, but the results are already exceeding expectations.

Terrax Minerals Inc. president Joe Campbell gives a project update in Ndilo on Jan. 22. The company recently announced positive results from its summer drilling project, including the discovery of new mineralized zones. - NNSL file photo

"To be able to continually find new areas of mineralization, it's tremendous," company president Joe Campbell told Yellowknifer. "We're very pleased."

In its latest report, TerraX said that work at its Yellowknife City Gold Project has led to the discovery of new mineralized zones, including a newly discovered vein with visible gold nicknamed the Timmies Vein. It is located 50 metres from and parallel to another vein explored last year, which returned up to 88.6 grams of gold per tonne in grab samples. Grab samples are pieces of rock a prospector sends away for assaying to determine a mineral content.

As well, chip sampling of a gold bearing vein discovered last year showed two metres with 21.4 grams of gold per tonne.

Visible gold was also found in two other veins and an analyzed grab sample from one of those returned a result of 129.5 grams of gold per tonne.

Campbell said this summer's work was more technical studies rather than exploration work. The difference being that the company is now more focused on the results and knowledge gained from previous work, given that they now have a better understanding of where the possible deposits are.

This summer's exploration program is also partly funded by the Mining Incentive Program of the Northwest Territories.

Spokesperson David Connelly said the program contributed approximately $80,000, which help pay for

the costs of structural studies, prospecting, biogeochemical surveys (sampling and analysis of minerals absorbed by nearby growing vegetation) as well as various experimental studies.

Connelly said that historically, the Con and Giant mines had about 10 grams of gold per tonne.

He also said that the length and width of the mineral vein, as well as the proximity to the surface are also important factors to whether a site is economically viable for a future mine.

In the case of TerraX's latest results, Connelly said they were "extremely encouraging" for the amount of gold found per tonne in the various samples, the length and width of the discovered veins, as well as their proximity to the surface.

Connelly said the next step is to drill to find out more.

Campbell said the company had initially focused on veins of quartz in its exploration work because that was what was mined in the past.

"Now we're realizing the host rock itself is very well mineralized," he said. "What we're started to do now is put much more resources into zones we can observe. The mineralization in areas we've identified from geophysical and remote-sensing work we've done and that's very encouraging for us.

"We now know we can define these areas and ground-truth them with minimal amounts of work."

Ground-truth means knowing something much more accurately through an additional set of measurements.

Following these results, TerraX is continuing to drill at its Crestaurum site, with eight holes already completed.

While Campbell said the company intends on remaining very active, and working through the summer and fall, this won't be its busiest time of the year.

"We have a plan to do a lot more drilling this coming winter because of the better access," he said.

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