ATAC Resources Ltd. has been busy working to uncover a new copper porphyry at their road-accessible Connaught Property in Western Yukon. Connaught is located 65 kilometres west of Dawson City, within the headwaters of the Sixtymile Placer camp (reported to have produced over 560,000 ounces of gold).
The Connaught property has long been explored for high-grade silver-lead-gold epithermal veins, with exploration work documented back into the mid-1900s – including small-scale high-grade mining in the 1960s and 1970s. A renewed focus this year has uncovered what appears to be significant copper porphyry potential with multiple priority targets identified along a 13-kilometre trend of favourable intrusive rocks.
ATAC has held the property for close to 20 years, with sporadic exploration on the 26 distinct silver-lead-gold veins, but these new discoveries have the potential to refocus attention onto a much larger prize.
“When we started ATAC, we were a prospect generator with a large portfolio of properties,” said Graham Downs, president and CEO. “With our focus on a flagship property elsewhere in Yukon, we sold off most of our other holdings over the years, but liked Connaught too much to ever let it go. The results from this year’s work are incredibly exciting – we’re very glad we kept the property and look forward to a significant drill campaign in 2022.”
Historical reports by previous operators highlighted the possibility for a porphyry centre to be present on the property – an intrusive source linked to the known epithermal veins – however, until this year, systematic exploration had never been conducted to test the theory.
“The late Cretaceous Prospector Mountain Suite rocks are underexplored, close in age to Western Copper and Gold’s Casino deposit in Yukon, and right in line with Kenorland’s Tanacross project in Alaska,” continued Downs. “Connaught and Tanacross are both located along the Sixtymile-Pika fault system – a key regional scale structural corridor – suggesting we could be looking at a similar style of target.”
Another barrier to porphyry exploration in the past was a fragmented claim base over the key exploration area. With encouraging soil data on their existing claims, ATAC set out to consolidate the land package. In late 2020 they made deals with two local prospectors and staked infill claims to secure the target area, setting the stage for the start of systematic exploration this year. The property is now over 137 square-kilometres in size, with the key porphyry target areas secured.
In 2021 the company conducted extensive exploration activities to evaluate the porphyry potential. Additional soil sampling was completed across the newly acquired claims, with over 2,000 samples collected. Two large ground geophysical surveys were also completed, with 39 line-kilometres of induced polarization and 113 kilometres of ground magnetics data collected. With the data in hand, the company has now identified four distinct target areas with coincident copper, molybdenum, and/or gold in soil and corresponding geophysical anomalies.
“This year we were hoping to identify one meaningful target for future work,” commented Downs. “The results far exceeded our expectation, with multiple exciting targets across an extensive area. This gives us the ability to advance the top targets to drilling while we continue exploring the earlier stage peripheral areas.”
Ten trenches were also excavated within a previously known 1,200 by 600 metre copper and molybdenum soil anomaly – now termed Target Area A – with nine of the 10 trenches returning visual copper mineralization, including malachite, azurite, tenorite and/or chalcopyrite. ATAC has released results from the first two trenches, with Trench A returning 93 metres of 331 ppm copper, and Trench B returning 69 metres of 548 ppm copper. Highlight grab samples from the trenches have returned up to 0.69 per cent copper in highly altered and leached quartz monzonite porphyry rock.
“We’re incredibly encouraged by what we’re seeing so far. It’s important to recognize this property lies in an unglaciated environment, which means copper grades are depleted at surface due to atmospheric leaching over millions of years.”
For comparison, the leached cap at the nearby Casino deposit in Yukon grades 300 ppm and averages 70 metres thick, according to Western Copper and Gold’s recently updated Mineral Resource. This puts ATAC’s first trench result right in line, and the second at nearly double Casino’s surface grade.
“Stay tuned for more news from this project as we prepare for a maiden drill program targeting the porphyry in 2022,” said Downs.
Soil sample results from this year on newly acquired claims extended this target area 500 metres to the east and 600 metres to the north, to a total size of 2,000 by 1,100 metres. Geophysics at Target Area A show a broad magnetic high around a central magnetic low underlying the trenching area. This could be representative of a magnetic destruction feature – a common alteration indicator present at porphyry targets. A zone of strong chargeability was also identified southwest of the trenches, suggestive of more sulphide mineralization at depth.
A second priority area – Target Area B – was also identified within the geophysical survey area, approximately 2.5 kilometres southeast of Area A. This target was a completely new discovery resulting from 2021 work, with a 1,300-by-1,700 copper soil anomaly with more sporadic gold and molybdenum anomalism. While the soil values are not as strong as they are in Target Area A, the geophysical response has ATAC very intrigued.
“The ground magnetic survey revealed a very distinctive circular magnetic high around a central magnetic low. This donut-shaped feature is very distinctive and a classic characteristic of porphyry systems,” explained Downs.
ATAC is a junior mining company focused on exploring for gold and copper in Yukon and Nevada. In addition to the Connaught property, it holds the 1,700-square-kilometre Rackla Gold Property in Central Yukon and has an option to earn in to 100 per cent of the East Goldfield Property in Nevada, where a 4,000-metre maiden RC drill program was recently completed. The company trades on the TSX Venture Exchange in Canada under the symbol ATC and the OTCQB Venture Market in the U.S. under the symbol ATADF. ATAC is well-funded, with approximately $6 million in working capital, and has a demonstrated track record of discovery.
For more information on the company or the Connaught property, visit their website at www.atacresources.com.
