A joint mining venture recently announced it has found promising quantities of gold at Herbert Glacier.
In late October, Quaterra Resources Inc. and Grande Portage Resources Ltd. formed a 35 percent/65 percent joint venture to further explore and develop the Herbert Glacier Project. The project is expected to produce gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead and tungsten.
Grande Portage, headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia, is a publicly traded mineral exploration company, principally focused on gold discovery in Alaska and British Columbia. It has $4.3 million in cash and marketable securities. Vancouver-based Quarterra owns or partners in 11 mine projects in Mexico, Canada and the U.S. Thomas Patton, CEO of Quaterra Resources Inc. sounded optimistic about his company’s Herbert Glacier exploration in a recent interview with CNBC.
“The first three holes of the 2011 drilling campaign at Herbert Glacier all intersected visible gold: the results from two of them, holes 11E-1 and 11E-2, are outstanding. One hole intercepted 15.3 meters of 1.08 ounces of gold per ton. Within that was a 2-meter true-width intercept of 3.8 ounces per ton,” Patton said, “which is a lot of gold.”
To date, Grande Portage has drilled a total of 21,400 feet of exploratory holes, according to company release. These holes provide rock samples the mining company uses to assay the amount of gold and other valuable elements in the mine project.
There are at least six “promising gold bearing main composite vein-fault structures containing ribbon structure quartz-sulfides on the property,” according to Grande Portage. The company has focused its exploratory drilling at Herbert Glacier on the Main vein, Deep Trench vein and Goat Creek vein,
The vein system was discovered in 1988 by Echo Bay Mining Co. and the federal Bureau of Mines.
Grande Portage found gold at least 440 feet deep in the Deep Trench vein. It also reported good assays from a drill hole on the Main vein.
The mining companies have said they have begun environmental baseline water sampling at the project.
The Herbert Glacier Project is located near good company. It is part of the 100-mile Juneau gold belt that has produced approximately 7 million ounces of gold. Couer Alaska’s Kensington gold mine is located 24 miles north of the Herbert Glacier property and Hecla Mining Company’s Greens Creek Mine is located 12 miles to the west. The project consists of a collection of 91 mining claims.
ALS Minerals in Vancouver assayed the 2011 samples by fire and used metallic screening for coarse gold detection. Arsenic, silver, lead and tungsten are being assayed by inductively coupled plasma methods.
To date, Grande Portage has completed 46 drill holes from nine platforms totaling 21,430 feet of NQ diamond drilling. The NQ diamond drill removes rock samples 1.87 inches in diameter.
Additional drill results from the Deep Trench vein are expected over the next few weeks. Grande Portage plans to continue to drill in 2012.
• Contact reporter Russell Stigall at 523-2276 or at russell.stigall@juneauempire.com.
Comments (36)
Add commentJust wait until those idiots
Just wait until those idiots at SEACC hear about this. They will do every thing in their power to kill the potential for good paying jobs.
That's the reason many of us consider them "economic jihadist"!
Too Bad
Just like Pebble this resource is in the watershed of one of Alaska's most productive salmon resources. Remember US Borax; this project will never happen!
If mining...
...is going to become a dominant industry in our region again, is there anything Juneau can do to take greater advantage of it in a strategic fashion?
KEEP OUT!
What are canucks doing poking around US soil anyway. Isnt this part of the Tongass National Forest? At least USFS just redid the trail there. I suspect traffic will increase suddenly
If southeast Alaska cares
If southeast Alaska cares about their salmon industry and American jobs, this mine wouldn't happen.
just wondering
I wonder why it is always a Canadian company that plans to open mines in Alaska. Do all mining companies sit in Canada or are there advantages to base yourself in Canada?
growing up is hard to do
wow, mad89 got through three whole sentences without glaring spelling and grammatical errors.
Well, "every thing" should be
Well, "every thing" should be "everything" and his last term, besides making no sense, should be plural.
NIMBY and CAVE
The Citizens Against Virtually Everything are sure out in force this morning. Not everyone comes from a trust fund. Not all mines are nasty. Not all blue collar jobs destroy the earth. If you don't want industry and roads and jobs, move to Pelican or Excursion Inlet. They could use a population boost.
Persnickety fiddler
I understood everything that was said by mad89. Maybe you two should morph into one demonic english teacher. spelin n gramar r ovrated
Language is not overrated,
Language is not overrated, but indicative of relative intelligence. Language is the software of the mind, and those who have better language skills have better minds.
Not all environmental concerns are extreme - this may be
I certainly understand how some environmental issues should concern all SE residents, but I think mining can be performed responsibly.
When cruise ships wanted the ability to dump human waste closer to shore in "mixing zones", I though I was reasonable in saying that I was against that idea. Not an extreme position, just that I enjoy recreation in the offshore areas of our town and the concept of increased fecal coli-form bacteria was just gross.
In the case of mining, water pollution is a concern, but I think it is addressable with modern technology.
A balance between fiscal prudence and social responsibility is always possible.
It seems that Canada has a
It seems that Canada has a more friendly tax structure for corporations' foreign investments and also the Canadian dollar is now worth more than the U.S. dollar. Both would encourage off shore business.
p writes, "Language is the software of the mind, and those who have better language skills have better minds."
I don't know whether to laugh or cry - OMG, think much of yourself?
Give me a salt of the earth guy any day over your haughty, academic 'brainiac'. That's just creepy, p.
I think we should have a CBJ
I think we should have a CBJ PFD for the mining. Its our resource, right?
It's the Vancouver exchange
The reason so many mining companies are Canadian is the Vancouver Stock Exchange, infamous for it's "penny stocks".
The Vancouver exchange allows the creation of stocks with very low share values, just a few cents per share. It's also infamous as the home of "pump and dump" stocks, where stocks are touted and sold at inflated prices by insiders, who dump all their stock just before the price crashes.
These "pump and dumps" are often the result of fraud, like the infamous Bre-X crash in 1997 that brought down all the gold stocks when it was disclosed that the ore samples from their mine in Borneo had been salted. BTW, it was that crash that put the kiss of death on Echo Bay's attempt to reopen the AJ.
Plus foreign companies can move all their assets out of the US and avoid paying up on pollution costs once they cease mining operations.
Yeah, what we really need now is a sulfite mine with acid drainage going into northern Lynn Canal via Eagle Beach. Not.
way to hit the nail on the
way to hit the nail on the head Calypso. PP is probably the biggest d-bag I've never met. But I'm sure his parents think he's special.
dollars and gold
http://www.x-rates.com/d/CAD/table.html
us dollar is worth more than the canadian dollar.
and a healthy salmon industry is worth more than the tiny amount of taxes and jobs we get by letting canadian companies mine our landscapes and leave their wastes behind.
ever wonder why there aren't any salmon down south? does that give you any pause?
I think the American dollar
I think the American dollar is worth 97 cents to the Canadian dollar - right?
Looks to me like this is
Looks to me like this is Federal land which is public land and so the Tax Payers in the US are again subsidizing the 1%. Its only the wealthy that can purchase/lease public land at auction for almost nothing.
this is part of the US Welfare system for the 1%
The Herbert Glacier Property comprises 1,880 acres, and consists of 74 Federal "unpatented mining claims" and 17 leased mining claims
unpatented mining claims means that they are leasing, from the federal government, the right to extract minerals and that no land ownership is conveyed
I believe that this company keeps 51% of the value.
Our Government is a welfare system for millionaires.
Trent, how is anybody other
Trent, how is anybody other than the companies involved are funding this project. How much money do you have going towards this prospecting effort?
Stake a claim
Unpatented means that if the claimant does no improvements or assessment work, then you can jump that claim. Quit complaining about the 1%. anyone can stake a claim... All 99% of you. There's claimers and complainers. Doers and boo-hooers. Not hard to figure out who is which.
Akbrdguru - the costs to
Akbrdguru - the costs to taxpayers is Billions
Net returns are low compared to agency costs....
Minerals are given away, and others are sold at less than optimal rates...
Federal government subsidizes the mining industry by giving it the right to damage sensitive areas....
the incentives to both promote mining over environmental values and lose money on mineral leases and sales...
dont have time to get into it but our Government needs an overhall - listen occupy wall street is right on target,
It's a good thing you ended
It's a good thing you ended with the OWS statement. That assured that I'd read your entire post rather than ignore it if you had referenced OWS from the start.
Ingredients for batteries?
Let's throw this at the greenies. They hate oil and want everything electric and battery powered. Well, what do you need to make batteries and connectors? About everything this mine will produce. Doesn't this make the mine green?? Oh no, where are all the new miners going to live?
Not all "greenies hate oil
Not all "greenies hate oil and want everything electric and battery powered." Thats the problem when you stereotype a group of people. Kind of like saying all democrats are againts conservative spending.
Us "greenies" dont want waters polluted, prestigious glaciers destroyed, and the possibility of the finest salmon fishery in the world partly damaged for the sake of mining gold.
whats wrong akbrdguru? You
whats wrong akbrdguru? You don't believe that folks in Congress act on and benifit from "insider" information or that they work to advance the interests of the 1%??
Some do some dont but things are most certainly tilted to favor of the 1% in our Courts, in our Political system...
this is what OWS is all about ....occupy the street (scene of the crime), the courts, our government and throw those responsible for the inequity out!
Run by US or no deal
Why do outsiders have to run our mines? Yes, we look like inept dolts when it comes to green energy, but this should be a US deal. If not, I'm totally against it. Besides, there is no place for the new miners to live and our schools are too far in the red to have more students.
mining&fish
How badly was fishing damaged by the largely unregulated mining here in the past?
Damaged!!
Before mining I understand you could walk on the backs of salmon crossing all the rivers without getting wet!!
Show the whole picture
Be fair in that assessment, snagger. That was also about the time there was a cannery in nearly every cove. It wasn't just mining.