Commodity
Gold
Target
Low Sulphidation Epithermal Gold
Location
Northern Hokkaido
Exploration Stage
Drill Testing
The Ikutahara Project contains up to 30 small historic mines and workings associated with epithermal veins, sinters and steam heated alteration. Japan Gold has identified a number of exploration targets. The key targets are the Kitano-O District prospect, the Saroma-Jomon corridor and the Ryuo prospect.
Kitano – O District Prospects
- Kitano – O prospect: Fully preserved epithermal systems. Drilling to date has failed to intersect any significant mineralisation; however, the area still contains untested geochemical anomalies.
- Showa – Ikutahara prospect: Well preserved epithermal system, steam heated alteration (kaolinite, alunite and dickite), localised gold rich veinlets, Au-pathfinders geochemical anomalies and associated CSMAT anomalies.
- North Kitano – O prospect: Preserved, sinters and high level vein textures. Poorly exposed, untested geochemical anomalies.
Saroma – Jomon Corridor
- 9km long epithermal corridor centered on a series of historic workings – Saroma, Chitose, Taiho and Jomon.
- 6 drill holes completed at the Saroma prospect, which is located on the northeast end of the Saroma-Jomon corridor.
- The drilling returned multiple intersections of high-grade silver with some gold mineralization along a 1 km length of the Saroma vein. The mineralisation is hosted within epithermal veins, that range up to 8m in width. Best intercepts include:
- IKDD22-012 1.05 m @ 1.3 g/t Au & 1,449.5 g/t Ag from 90.55 m
- KDD22-010 3.1m @ 0.4 g/t Au & 475.7 g/t Ag from 104.75m
- The Saroma mineralization remains open along strike and at depth.
- The Saroma prospect structure remains open a further 5 km southwest from the Taio workings to the historical Jomon Mine workings where numerous quartz boulders sampled in a small open pit reported grades averaging 25 g/t gold and 50 g/t silver. The majority of this corridor has not been drill tested.
Ryuo
- The Ryuo prospect contains five areas of historic workings: Jinja, Shouei, Taisei, Buryu and Ryuei. The workings were developed along a 1km open ended zone of alteration and mineralisation prior to the government-imposed closure in 1943.
- Underground sampling carried out in the 1950's at the Jinja vein workings, returned zones of high-grade gold mineralization including one vein sampled over a strike length of 72 m returning average grades of 40.8 g/t Au and 193 g/t Ag (average vein width approximately 0.5 m).
- 20 drill holes have been completed. The drilling tested all five workings. The drilling intersected narrow zones of high-grade mineralisation, with best results associated with a small-high grade shoot below the Jinja workings.
- Best results include:
- IKDD021-10:20m @ 6.3g/t Au and 15.7m g/t Ag from 74.05m including 5.1m @ 15.2g/t Au and 13.1g/t Ag from 79.75m
- Drill results are encouraging due to the grade present. The focus now is to define areas where there could be better vein development. Targets include Au+pathfinders soil anomalies to northeast and southwest of the workings and two additional anomalies south of the workings.
