Exploration is continuing into the winter at the massive Pebble copper-gold-molybdenum deposit on the Alaska Peninsula southwest of Anchorage.
Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd. has seven rigs working and expects to mobilize two more rigs at the site 18 miles north of Iliamna village. All of the work is being supported by helicopters from Iliamna.
The company reported that results from 72,700 feet of core hole drilling have been compiled from 17 holes as of Oct. 4 and testing of cores from an additional six holes totaling 24,400 feet are still underway.
Exploration is currently focused on the Pebble East deposit, a deeper ore body that is richer than a low-grade deposit defined earlier at Pebble West, an adjacent ore body. Pebble East would require an underground mine while Pebble West could be mined by open-pit methods.
Of the Pebble East exploration, Northern Dynasty said, "Drill holes continue to intersect long intervals of higher-grade copper-gold-molybdenum mineralization and have established a very high level of deposit continuity."
One drill hole of particular note is hole 7359 that intersected 2,228 feet of ore with a copper-gold equivalent of 1.41 percent, the company said. This is in the southern part of the deposit and it helps confirm the continuity of strong mineralization in the area, according to the press release.
Another hole of interest is hole 7357 at the northern end of the deposit and which extends the known ore body more than 600 feet from the previous boundary. Hole 7357 intersected 1,680 feet grading 1.03 percent copper-gold copper-gold equivalent with 510 feet grading 1.46 copper-gold copper-gold equivalent.
The goal of the current drilling is to define the outer boundaries and the geometry of the Pebble East deposit to allow for development of a mining plan, which would be submitted to state and federal agencies along with permit applications in late 2008 or early 2009.
Northern Dynasty recently entered into a 50-50 joint-venture partnership with Anglo American, a major international mining company, to develop the Pebble project. Previously Rio Tinto, another major mining company, purchased about 20 percent of Northern Dynasty's shares.
