Early maps of the Klondike Gold Fields, such as the one shown above depict the major gold discoveries, shown in red, in creeks draining directly off the 'Dome'. KSD is located in a key location in relation to the original discoveries, notably those by George Carmack, Skookum Jim Mason and Robert Henderson, considered the co-discoverers of what turned out to be one of the most significant gold rushes in history. Importantly, Kestrel's KSD property is at the hub of a radial pattern of the rich placer gold creeks of the Klondike Gold Fields that are still being mined today.
The 'mother lode' source of the Klondike Gold Fields, has to date never been found, but the drainage pattern alone suggests a localized concentration of bedrock gold and silver.
Overview
The target at KSD is an orogenic style quartz-pyrite-galena vein system with peak values of 305.7 g/t Au from a panel sample of a 10cm wide quartz vein, and up to 6.0 g/t Au from sampling of pyritic Schist. Areas of interest on the approximate 700 ha property include the Mitchell and Sheba Zones.
KSD is located at the headwaters of some of the most prolific placer gold creeks in the Klondike. Gold recovered from these creeks is commonly angular, occasionally has quartz attached and is often found with pyrite and galena.
Road access is from Dawson City via government maintained gravel roads and a series of local exploration roads. Travel time from Dawson City to the property is approximately 35 minutes.
Mitchell Zone
The Mitchell Zone consists of several sheeted to stockwork quartz vein zones within a 225m wide by 300m long area centred on and to the south of the Mitchell Shaft.
Individual zones are up to 15m in width. Veins are mineralized with pyrite, galena, arsenopyrite and rare visible gold while the host schist is often pyritized and sericitized.
Yukon Minfile reports that “spectacular samples of free gold were reportedly found on surface in the late 1890’s”; 2020 sampling at the Mitchell Shaft returned up to 305.7 g/t Au from a quartz vein.
Trenching and ground magnetics over existing zones and untested gold soil anomalies will be required to help define drill targets.
Sheba Zone
The Sheba Zone consists of an approximate 250m wide by 600m long north striking sheeted quartz vein system. Sampling has returned peak values of 60.8 g/t Au and 1,302 g/t Ag from quartz veins and up to 5.075 g/t Au and 7.7 g/t Ag from wallrock to mineralized veins.
The presence of a multi stage mineralizing system is suggested by fluid inclusion studies completed at the University of Aachen.
The Sheba vein is of similar age (140-134Ma) to mineralization found in the Cariboo District of BC and at the Golden Saddle deposit located in the White Gold district approximately 80 kilometres southwest of KSD.
Similar to Mitchell, ground magnetics and trenching of existing zones and untested gold-silver soil anomalies will be required to help define drill targets.
The 2020 Program
The 2020 exploration program consisted of prospecting, excavator trenching and reverse circulation (“RC”) drilling.
Prospecting located visible gold in a quartz vein at the Mitchell shaft as well as several new vein and alteration zones.
A total of 7 excavator trenches were cut with results of up to 0.33m of 6.15 g/t Au and 99.2 g/t Ag.
A total of 12 holes and 515 metres were drilled. Hole 2, located near the Mitchell Shaft, returned up to 7.29 g/t Au over 1.52 metres while Hole 11, located between Sheba and Mitchell returned 0.74 g/t Au over 12.19 metres.
New showings were easily located suggesting discovery potential is high and further work to define a source for area placers is warranted.
Hole 1 of the 2020 RC Drill Program
