McCord Gold Project, Alaska
Overview
Endurance Gold Corporation owns and has an option to earn 100% interest in 24 Alaska State lode mining claims encompassing 2,640 acres located next to the Elliott Highway in the Fairbanks Mining District, Alaska. The McCord property is located in the eastern extension of the Livengood gold district and adjoins International Tower Hill's ("ITH") prefeasibility-stage Livengood Gold Property on the eastern side. ITH have reported an in-situ measured and indicated resource of 11.46 million ounces of gold (see the ITH website for complete disclosure).
The McCord Property was originally located to cover the stream catchment area for two encouraging gold anomalies (110 and 61 parts per billion ("ppb") gold) in stream sediment samples collected from McCord Creek in 1982 and re-analysed by the State of Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys in 2005. The Livengood gold district has not been glaciated and therefore the stream sediment gold anomalies are interpreted to represent a source area within the McCord Creek drainage catchment.
Since acquisition of the initial claims, 467 soil samples and 73 rock samples have been collected from an area east of the current option. These earlier programs identified seven multi-element soil anomalies, associated with multiple anomalous gold values (>100 ppb), which are considered to be of exploration significance. The two largest multi-element soil anomalies, exceeding 10 ppb gold, are approximately 1,500 by 400 metres, and 1,100 by 500 metres in size. The maximum soil value exceeds 100 ppb gold, which is the upper detection limit for the analytical method used. The two largest soil anomalies shed into the McCord Creek drainage.
In 2017, the Company optioned nine (9) claims ("Optioned Claims") and staked an additional eleven (11) claims. These claims are located southwest of the Company's pre-existing claims that formed the McCord Gold Project. The Company's exploration focus at McCord has now shifted to these 2017 claims and the Optioned Claims. The Optioned Claims have been evaluated by the vendor solely for their placer gold potential largely with auger drilling. This program discovered one location in the McCord Creek valley where the auger drill has recovered fine gold, gold-in-quartz, gold-in-oxide wad, and significant amounts of cinnabar in concentrates from auger drill samples down to a depth of 20 feet. The gold samples have low abrasion characteristics suggesting proximity to source. To the best of the Company's knowledge, aside from some historic and current placer mining activity, this area of McCord Gold Project has never been previously evaluated with systematic exploration involving soil sampling, geophysics and diamond drilling.
Since acquisition of the Optioned Claims, the Company conducted another soil sampling program on the lower portions of McCord Gold Project. The Company is also monitoring placer-auger drilling on the Optioned Claims conducted by the vendor. An additional soil sampling program and a follow-up program of geophysics, and possibly auger, reverse circulation or diamond drilling should be conducted to advance this project.
Under the terms of the 2017 letter agreement with the private vendor of the Optioned Claims, Endurance can earn 100% interest by completing a total of US$50,000 in exploration expenditures in the area, and US$40,000 (US$7,000 paid) in cash payments by December 31, 2024. An additional bonus cash payment of US$20,000 is payable if the Company wishes to exercise the option earlier than October 1, 2024. The option is subject to a 2% net smelter royalty ("NSR") and Endurance can purchase half of the NSR at any time. The vendor has the right to conduct placer mining activity during the term of the option and will work with the Company in identifying target areas to test with the vendor's auger drill.
The geology in the area is interpreted to consist of Proterozoic to Paleozoic sedimentary and volcanic rocks near an ophiolitic thrust assemblage of mafic volcanics that has been cross-cut by Cretaceous-aged intrusives. Portions of the McCord Gold Project are also underlain by Early Cretaceous clastic sediments in thrust and fault contact with the ophiolitic assemblage. This geological setting is similar to ITH's adjoining property.
Robert T. Boyd, P.Geo. is a qualified person as defined in National Instrument 43-101 and supervised the compilation of the information forming the basis for this summary.