The big question is when and what kind of a deal can MMG make with Hecla on these western district advanced targets so that MMG can focus solely on La Plata?
The same goes for the eastern part of the district with another exploration company. Scott has mentioned DIscovery Silver a couple of times.
MMG have done well not to dilute out shareholdres but the pace of drilling at Keno is as slow as the Yukon is cold:
Pending 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate for Keno Silver Project
The upcoming inaugural independent 43-101 mineral resource estimate is focused on four initial deposits across the Keno Silver project, including: Formo, Caribou, Fox and Homestake. These four deposits are the most advanced of over 40 identified target areas, each of which is characterized by a kilometric scale Ag in soil anomaly, exposed outcropping high-grade veins, and varying levels of exploration activity or historic production. Metallic Minerals has completed 165 drill holes totalling 18,983 m of combined reverse circulation and diamond core drilling at the Keno Silver project since 2017 on a total of 11 targets, all of which have returned encouraging results. The four most advanced “resource-ready” targets will be part of the upcoming mineral resource estimate being completed by SGS Geological Services and include:
- Formo Target – In the West Keno District, it demonstrates potential for lower-cost bulk tonnage mining or high-grade selective methods with drill highlights including:
- Hole FOR22-04 – 20.87 m @ 220.5 g/t Ag Eq (144.6 g/t Ag, 0.70% Pb, 1.59% Zn), and 1.63 m @ 1,487.19 g/t Ag Eq (1,049 g/t Ag, 4.21% Pb, 9.45% Zn)
- Hole FOR21-05 – 19.8 m @ 216.26 g/t Ag Eq (70 g/t Ag, 0.41 g/t Au, 0.30% Pb, 2.07% Zn) and 0.7 m @ 1,405 g/t Ag Eq (421.0 g/t Ag, 0.15 g/t Au, 1.53% Pb, 24.2% Zn)
- Hole FOR20-003 – 3.0 m @ 2,954.52 g/t Ag (1,568 g/t Ag, 29.45% Pb, 1.35% Zn)
- Caribou Target – In the Central Keno target area the Caribou target historically produced very high-grade material from a shallow surface pit grading more than 6,000 g/t silver.
- Fox Target – Discovered by Metallic Minerals in 2020 in the East Keno target area, the Fox target is characterized as a newly recognized bulk tonnage style of mineralization with shallow-dipping sheeted vein sets up to 177 m in width. Drilling since 2020, has defined a bulk-tonnage mineralized block over 300 m along strike and 150 m down-dip from surface which is open in all directions.
- Homestake Target – A historic producer, the Homestake target in the Central Keno area is fractally spatial with the districts’ giant past producers and current resources (Silver King, Elsa, Bermingham, Hector Calumet, Flame & Moth and Bellekeno) near the contact of the Keno Hill Quartzite and Sourdough Hill formations. With only 88 drill holes (slightly over 5000 m of drilling), and a strike length over 2 km the Homestake target represents considerable resource opportunity and exploration potential.
Metallic Minerals sees considerable opportunity for resource growth from target expansion and new discovery with the further systematic application of exploration, including the expansion of detailed soil geochemical grids, “resource-ready” target expansion through drilling and reconnaissance drilling of early-stage targets.