ANZ receives drilling permits for Twin Canyon Gold Project.. Drilling at the Twin Canyon Project in southwest Colorado has been approved by the United States Forest Service and the Colorado Division of Reclamation, Mining and Safety, subject to certain standard operating conditions and placement of a $18,104 bond. Alianza has now received all necessary permits to conduct a proposed 13 hole drill program from 8 drill pads, totalling approximately 3,950 metres of drilling.
“Mineralization at Twin Canyon is centred on the Charlene Mine, where ’several thousand‘ ounces of gold were reportedly mined from bleached and altered sandstones in the 1980s,” stated Rob Duncan, M.Sc., Vice President, Exploration for Alianza. “Alianza’s work has identified the same gold bearing sandstones over a distance of 3000 metres of strike length in the vicinity of the Charlene Mine, greatly expanding the exploration potential of this district. The proposed drill program will test this prospective stratigraphy with the goal of demonstrating a large scale gold mineralizing system at Twin Canyon.”
Exploration at Twin Canyon has targeted disseminated native gold mineralization associated with a bleached sandstone spotted with bitumen, with small amounts of limonite after pyrite. Optical and microprobe work carried out on mineralized samples indicate a direct gold – bitumen association raising the novel possibility that the mineralizing process at Twin Canyon is driven by those associated with petroleum basin development. A small underground gold mine (the Charlene Mine) operated at Twin Canyon dating back to the mid-1950s. Historic sampling of the underground workings has returned grab samples ranging from 0.1 to 15.77 g/t gold. Twenty-eight historic channel samples 1.5 to 10 metres in length were anomalous in gold, eight of which exceeded 2 g/t gold (including a highlight of 8.1 g/t gold over 3 metres). Recent work, including mapping and soil and rock geochemical sampling expanded the prospective strike length of the prospective gold bearing sandstone unit to over 3000 metres, with regional potential for expansion of the target laterally as well as to deeper stratigraphic levels.
Alianza is seeking a partner to fund the next phase of work and will be entering into discussions with prospective partners through the first quarter of 2023.