On January 8, White Gold Corp. (V.WGO) put out a press release detailing the new discovery on its “Betty” Property. MotherlodeTV recently interviewed White Gold Corp. CEO, David D’Onofrio, about this discovery in the White Gold District, Yukon.
1. What makes this latest discovery’s results so significant?
The Betty Ford discovery is now the fourth gold discovery and the latest example of what we continue to find across our 423,000-hectare land package. With intersection of over 50 meters of gold mineralization, and being hosted on the same structural fault as Goldcorp’s adjacent Coffee project, we believe we have the making of another very significant discovery here.
Specific drilling highlights include, the Ford target hole BETFRDRAB18-002 returned 1.08 g/t Au over 50.29m from 4.57m depth, including 2.24 g/t Au over 9.41m from 19.81m depth. And BETFRDRAB18-001, the eastern most hole drilled in the area, returning 24.39m of 0.94 g/t Au from 19.81m depth; including 10.67m of 1.26 g/t from 19.81m depth.
What is really exciting is to date there has been very little drill testing completed on the Betty property, and these results and the gold mineralization found on other targets on the Betty this year, have demonstrated that this is a very gold large system. All this was found with just a preliminary, shallow drilling program. With getting such strong results early on, we believe we have only scratched the surface on the total mineral potential we have here.
2. Why was the recent drilling on the Betty Rotary-Air-Blast?
Our exploration strategy is the brainchild of world-renowned prospector and White Gold Corp. Chief Technical Officer, Shawn Ryan. With our significantly sized land package, our strategy continues to be to explore as many areas as possible with first shallow testing methods, and then to advance deeper as value is demonstrated in the ground. Our methodical and data-driven strategy begins with soil sampling, LiDAR surveying, and bedrock probing. These methods allow us to strategically direct our RC and RAB drilling. This low-cost drilling allows us to test a maximum number of targets and define new discoveries that require diamond drilling. This cost-effective approach preserves our cash, stretching exploration dollars further. Shawn’s exploration methods have continued to prove successful this season and we are excited to complete further exploration on our Betty property.
This is the fourth new discovery we have made this year. We have a very robust pipeline of additional targets to test on this and our other properties in the White Gold district, which is continuing to emerge as a prolific gold camp in Canada!
3. Why was drilling completed on the Betty property, and not closer to your flagship Golden Saddle & Arc deposits?
White Gold’s strategy is a combination of expanding our existing deposits and major discoveries, such as Golden Saddle and Vertigo, and generating new discoveries on our portfolio of targets through regional exploration. As part of our 2018 regional program, exploration on the Betty property included 1,800m drilled over 28 holes on 6 target areas, along with extensive soil sampling, LiDAR surveys, and geologic mapping and prospecting. As with all of our drill targets, these were defined through a regional-scale evaluation of our land package and ground-level evaluation through soil sampling and prospecting. With the most significant results returned from the Ford and White target areas, and only a limited drilling program completed to date, we believe there is significant potential to this new discovery.
4. How do these Betty property results relate to other nearby deposits?
Goldcorp’s Coffee deposit contains over 3.4M oz of gold and is less than 40km away from our Betty Ford target, while Western Copper and Gold’s Casino project with 8.9M oz of gold is within 20km; and as the old saying goes, the best place to find a new gold mine, is next to an existing gold mine! The Coffee Creek fault runs directly through the Betty property, and our Betty Ford target is hosted within this fault structure, the same structural setting as Goldcorp’s Coffee deposit. We believe with this very close proximity and the similarity in grades to the Coffee deposit which Goldcorp purchased in 2016 for $520M, and is scheduled to commence production in 2021 bringing with it significant supporting infrastructure. there will be some exciting finds in the near future as we continue to explore the extent of this mineralized system.