Freegold Mountain – Project Summary
The road accessible, district scale (~200 sq. km) Freegold Mountain gold-copper project is located within the Dawson Range, approximately 70 km northwest of Carmacks, Yukon Territory, a stable, mining friendly jurisdiction in northwestern Canada. Since Triumph Gold acquired the property in 2006 more than 20 mineralized zones have been identified and NI 43-101 mineral resources have been delineated at the Revenue Au-Ag-Cu-Mo porphyry-related deposit, Nucleus Au-Ag-Cu deposit and the Tinta Hill Au-Ag-Cu-Pb-Zn vein-related deposit. The company continues to aggressively explore, building ounces at the existing deposits and evaluating the multitude of other targets located on the property.
A District-Scale Project in an Emerging Mining Camp
The project is situated within the Dawson Range which is also host to Goldcorp’s Coffee deposit, Western Copper and Gold’s Casino project, Copper North’s Carmack’s Copper project and Rockhaven’s Klaza deposit. Within the district, the Big Creek Fault is recognized as a controlling structure related to many of the most important deposits. Triumph Gold’s Freegold Mountain project is ideally situated within the Dawson Range along one of the only road accessible portions of the Big Creek Fault.
Property Geology and Deposit Styles
The Freegold Mountain Project is underlain by Mesozoic granitic rocks with lesser Paleozoic meta-sedimentary basement rocks. The project area spans two geologic terranes where the Tinta Hill deposit is within the Stikine terrane and the Revenue and Nucleus deposits lie within the Yukon-Tanana terrane. The project lies along a 30 kilometre-long segment of the regionally important Big Creek fault, which is associated with mineralization along its full length into Alaska.
During the Middle and Late Cretaceous period, the Freegold Mountain portion of the Big Creek fault was affected by transtensional faulting between two fault strands, resulting in a zone of near-surface crustal dilation and emplacement of voluminous magma bodies. Late Cretaceous reactivation of the fault resulted in the emplacement of syn-tectonic intrusions and an associated hydrothermal system with an unusually-rich metal endowment.
Geological evidence from the six-kilometre-long Revenue and Nucleus deposit area overwhelmingly supports a massive, evolving hydrothermal system. Early, high-temperature Cu and Au-rich mineralization at Revenue is cross-cut by quartz-feldspar-porphyritic dikes and lower-temperature mineralization associated with the Revenue diatreme breccia. The flanks of the hydrothermal system are characterized by low-temperature gold bearing epithermal veins and breccias of the Nucleus deposit, and distal polymetallic veins. The characteristics of the Revenue and Nucleus hydrothermal systems are typical of Au-Cu Porphyry deposits, the primary source of the worlds gold and copper production.
The Freegold Mountain property encompasses several other copper-gold porphyry exploration targets including the Stoddart, Cabin, Nitro, and Castle zones. Outboard of the porphyry targets are a number of gold-rich epithermal vein showings including Irene, Ridge, Goldy and Dart, and gold-rich skarn showings. Tinta Hill is an intrusion-hosted Cu-Au-enriched polymetallic vein-type deposit. These showings, along with over a dozen others on the property, are at various stages of exploration
Triumph Gold is committed to increasing shareholder value through continued exploration on the Freegold Mountain property, leading to further resource definition, and by identifying new exploration opportunities.
Freegold Mountain Project — 2018 Exploration
A large program of surface and sub-surface mineral exploration was undertaken from March to early October at the Nucleus and Revenue Deposits, as well as the Blue Sky, Happy Creek (Maximus II), Drone, Kiersten, Irene and Cabin Zones. This work included 73 diamond drill holes totalling 17,532.68m, 13 excavator trenches totalling 921m, 8 channel sawed trenches totalling 209m, 865 infill soil samples, 55 rock (grab) samples, 30 line kilometres of deep penetrating IP, and 48 line kilometres of ground mag geophysics.
The 2018 exploration program was mainly focused on testing a six kilometer-long intense multi-element and geophysical anomaly that surrounds the Nucleus and Revenue deposits. A geological review of the Revenue and Nucleus deposits, conducted in 2016, reviled that they are components of a larger porphyry-related mineralizing system. In 2017 Triumph Gold conducted step-out drilling in the surrounding soil and geophysical anomaly and encountered porphyry and/or epithermal mineralization in each of the four areas that were tested. Results from that program included both the highest grade gold mineralization ever intersected at Revenue (7 metres grading 15.0 g/t Au, including 1 metre grading up to 81.3 g/t Au, in RVD17-14; see news release 17-14 Nov 15, 2017, and the highest grade porphyry mineralization intersected on the entire property to date (57 metres grading 1.01 g/t Au and 0.285% Cu, in RVD17-13; see news release 17-13 November 2, 2017. The 2018 exploration program followed up on those positive results, continuing to test the areas where high grade intersections were made in 2017, and further investigating the broad soil and geophysical anomaly that encompasses and surround the areas of known mineralization.
Highlights of the 2018 exploration program include:
- Discovery and extension of high-grade, gold-rich mineralization in the steeply-dipping Blue Sky Porphyry, intersected by eight drill holes, including:
- the longest +1% CuEq porphyry intersection ever drilled in the Yukon at 316m of 1.1g/t Au, 5.0g/t Ag, and 0.27% Cu (see news release 18-09 September 12, 2018), as well as:
- over 125m of 1.24 g/t Au, 7 g/t Ag, and 0.31% Cu (see news release 18-08 August 23, 2018);
- Expansion of the WAu Breccia, first delineated in 2017, with five new drill holes hosting gold concentrations up to 27.2g/t including 128m of 1.27g/t AuEq (see news release 18-07 July 31, 2018);
- Definition of a 500m long corridor of high-grade porphyry and breccia mineralization, open along strike and to depth including the Blue Sky Porphyry and WAu Breccia (see news release 18-07 July 31, 18-08 August 23, and 18-09 September 12, 2018);
- Definition drilling at the Nucleus Resource which intersected average gold grades exceeding the current inferred mineral resource (0.544g/t Au) in 16 of 21 holes (see news release 18-14 November 7, 2018);
- Discovery of two new gold-copper showings at surface — Maximus II in Happy Creek and the Drone Zone in Mechanic Creek (see news release 18-11 October 16, 2018);
- Discovery of oxide and supergene enriched sulphide in the Revenue, Guder, and Granger zones (see news release 18-12 October 24, 2018); and
- 30 line kilometres of deep penetrating IP-DC-MT and 48 line kilometres of ground mag over the Revenue-Nucleus-Blue Sky area in October of 2018, targeting a buried intrusion — results pending (see news release 18-10 September 20, 2018).
Notes:
- Copper and Gold Equivalent [CuEq, AuEq] are used for illustrative purposes, to express the combined value of copper, gold, silver and molybdenum as a percentage of either copper or gold. No allowances have been made for recovery losses that would occur in a mining scenario. CuEq and AuEq are calculated on the basis of US$3.00 per pound of copper, US$1,250.00 per troy ounce of gold, US$16.00 per troy ounce of silver and US$16.00 per pound of molybdenum oxide.
- Drill interval lengths refers to drill hole intercept. True widths have not been determined.
Table 1: Estimate of Mineral Resource for the Nucleus Deposit (Feb. 11, 2020)
| Class | Tonnes
(million) |
Average Grade | Contained Metal | ||||||
| AuEq (g/t) | Au (g/t) |
Cu (%) |
Ag (g/t) |
AuEq koz |
Au koz |
Cu Mlbs |
Ag koz |
||
| Indicated | 31.0 | 0.75 | 0.65 | 0.07 | 0.70 | 748 | 651 | 44 | 698 |
| Inferred | 9.4 | 0.63 | 0.56 | 0.04 | 0.72 | 189 | 169 | 9 | 217 |
Note: 0.30 g/t AuEq cut-off grade for pit constrained resources. Koz = thousands of ounces; Mlbs – millions of pounds
Table 2: Estimate of Mineral Resources for the Revenue Deposit (Feb. 11, 2020)
| Type | Tonnes
(million) |
Average Grade | Contained Metal | ||||||||||
| AuEq (g/t) | Au (g/t) |
Cu (%) |
Ag (g/t) |
Mo
(%) |
W
(%) |
AuEq koz |
Au koz |
Cu Mlbs |
Ag koz |
Mo
klbs |
W
klbs |
||
| Indicated | |||||||||||||
| Pit Constrained | 11.4 | 0.69 | 0.38 | 0.12 | 2.4 | 0.016 | 0.008 | 252 | 140 | 30 | 895 | 4089 | 2082 |
| Inferred | |||||||||||||
| Pit Constrained | 25.0 | 0.70 | 0.46 | 0.11 | 2.2 | 0.009 | 0.005 | 565 | 367 | 61 | 1786 | 4954 | 2807 |
| Underground | 2.5 | 1.40 | 0.99 | 0.22 | 5.2 | 0.010 | 0.001 | 112 | 79 | 12 | 417 | 525 | 60 |
| Combined Inferred | 27.5 | 0.77 | 0.51 | 0.12 | 2.5 | 0.009 | 0.005 | 677 | 446 | 73 | 2203 | 5478 | 2867 |
Note: 0.30 g/t AuEq cut-off grade for pit constrained resources and 1.0g/tAuEq cut-off grade for underground resources. Mo = Molybdenum
Table 3: Estimate of Inferred Mineral Resource at The Tinta Deposit (Feb. 11, 2020)
| Type | Tonnes
(000) |
Average grade: | Contained Metal: | ||||||||||
| AuEq (g/t) | Au (g/t) | Cu (%) | Ag (g/t) |
Pb (%) | Zn (%) | AuEq koz |
Au koz |
Cu Mlbs |
Ag koz |
Pb Mlbs |
Zn
Mlbs |
||
| Pit Constrained | 908 | 3.01 | 1.09 | 0.18 | 42.5 | 0.72 | 1.47 | 88 | 32 | 4 | 1240 | 14 | 29 |
| Underground | 1313 | 3.13 | 1.43 | 0.16 | 46.3 | 0.56 | 1.17 | 132 | 60 | 5 | 1955 | 16 | 34 |
| Combined | 2221 | 3.08 | 1.29 | 0.17 | 44.7 | 0.63 | 1.29 | 220 | 92 | 8 | 3195 | 31 | 63 |
Note: 0.35 g/t AuEq cut-off grade for pit constrained resources and 1.8 g/t AuEq cut-off for underground resources.
- Notes* The economic viability of the mineral resources at the Freegold property were tested by constraining them within a floating cone pit shells, or evaluating the viability of possible underground extraction using the following technical and economic parameters:
- Mining Cost (open pit) $2.50/t
- Mining Cost (underground) $25/t at Revenue, $60/t at Tinta
- Process $11/t at Nucleus and Revenue, $12/t at Tinta
- G&A $1.50/t at Nucleus and Revenue, $2.50/t at Tinta
- Gold Price $1,500/oz
- Silver Price $18/oz
- Copper Price $3.00/lb
- Lead Price $1.00/lb
- Zinc Price $1.25/lb
- Molybdenum price $9.00/lb
- Tungsten price $13.00/lb
- Gold Process Recovery 85%
- Silver Process Recovery 60%
- Copper Process Recovery 75% (80% at Tinta)
- Lead Process Recovery 75% (Tinta only)
- Zinc Process Recovery 75% (Tinta Only)
- Mo Process Recovery 50% (Revenue Only)
- Tungsten Process Recovery 50% (Revenue Only)
- Pit Slope 45 degrees
There are no adjustments for mining recoveries or dilution. The open pit testing indicates that some of the deeper mineralization may not be economic due to the increased waste stripping requirements. Underground mineral resources exhibit continuity of thickness and grade and are considered to exhibit reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction using underground extraction methods at the projected cut-off grades. It is important to recognize that these discussions of surface and underground mining parameters are used solely to test the “reasonable prospects for eventual economic extraction,” and that they do not represent an attempt to estimate mineral reserves. There are no mineral reserves calculated for this Project. These preliminary evaluations are used to prepare the mineral resource estimates and to select appropriate reporting assumptions.
Robert Sim, P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, is responsible for the estimate of mineral resources presented in this news release and has reviewed, verified and approved the contents of this news release as they relate to the mineral resource estimate, including the sampling, analytical, and test data underlying the mineral resource estimate. Mr. Sim is independent from Triumph and confirms there were no limitations from the company in verifying the drilling and sample data with site visit observations and monitoring of the QAQC program.
Tony Barresi, Ph.D., P.Geo., President of the Company, and qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 for the Freegold Mountain project has reviewed, verified and approved the contents of this news release as they relate to the ongoing exploration and development program at the Freegold Mountain project.