Northern Tiger Resources, www.northern-tiger.com – the mineral developer which is currently focused on gold and copper in the Yukon, reported execution today of an option agreement with Alexco Resource Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp. subsidiary Newmont Canada Corp. for the much sought after Sprogge property in the Yukon.
This agreement finalized language already put forth in the previous letter of intent issued back in December of 2010 and the deal itself will be subject to TSX Venture Exchange approval. Terms of the agreement provide NTR with an option to earn 100% interest in the property, provided the Company makes cash payments totaling $500k over three years and spends at least $1M on exploration over a four-year period. Additionally, Alexco/Newmont will have a first right of offer for any proposed sale of the property for up to four year and will retain a 2% net smelter interest on the property, which can be purchased by the Company for an additional $1M.
President of NTR, Greg Hayes, was extremely pleased to be adding such a nice piece of additional acreage to the Company’s already substantial holdings in the Yukon and cited the extensive gold-in-soil (GIS) anomaly present at the site, as well as the characteristic similarities/proximity to the Company’s recent discovery at 3Ace as firm indicators of the Sprogge property’s development potential.
The Sprogge is largely undrilled, with only a small drill program run back in 2000 and the site has a number of very interesting geochemical targets that are worthy of further exploration; however, the primary target at the site is a huge anomaly called the Sugar Bowl Zone (SBZ). The SBZ is defined by a gold and so-called “pathfinder element” geochemical signature which maps out a 2.4k meter by 1.6k meter area, whose core is half that size and averages 200ppb gold in soils (GIS value of 10.3 g/t).Additional surface sampling via rock chip along the roughly 2.5 km ridge that bisects the SBZ, has also returned exciting values ranging up to 34.8 g/t (including 6.9 g/t over 12 meters and 9.6 g/t over 4 meters).
The limited, four-hole (762 meters) drilling program in 2000 only tested shallow targets near the northern border of the SBZ and was plagued by poor weather conditions during operations. It is very strange to see this level of surface mineralization without a larger nearby source and the Company remains confident that this particular Yukon site may contain some serious quantities of undefined gold mineralization.
Let us hear your thoughts below:
