REDEVELOPING THE NALUNAQ GOLD MINE AND REMOTE SAMPLING AT THE TARTOQ PROJECT
SRK Exploration has been working with junior gold explorer AEX Gold and its Greenlandic subsidiary, Nalunaq A/S, for a number of years on multiple mineral exploration projects across southern Greenland. After providing consultancy advice on the Nalunaq Gold Mine, SRK authored the NI43-101 compliant technical report on the property that AEX Gold (formerly Alopex Gold) used to list on the TSX Venture Exchange in early 2017. For that first season following initial fund raising, SRK ES was selected to provide geological services at both the Tartoq and Nalunaq Projects.
The Tartoq Project is an early stage exploration project where gold mineralisation has historically been identified in shear zones within a Precambrian greenstone belt. The Tartoq Project is incredibly remote, some 300km by boat along the coast from Narsasuaq. The SRK team of 8 built a tented camp at the prospect and spent unsupported 18 days mapping and completing over 250m of channel sampling using a circular saw to sample the glacially scoured bedrock.
Moving directly to the Nalunaq Project, the SRK team were responsible for the heli-supported core drilling programme. The Nalunaq Gold Mine was open between 2004 and 2009, during which time Crew Gold produced over 350,000 oz gold from mineralisation with an average grade of over 15g/t Au. The drilling in 2017 was targeting up-dip and lateral extensions to the previously mined “main vein “. This required organisation of drill pad construction, rig mobilisation/demobilisation, retrieval of core and staff, all by helicopter. The health and safety procedures put in place for the programme were therefore of upmost important and more detailed than for a low-level drilling programme. SRK ES staff geotechnically, geologically and structurally logged the 14 drill holes, cut and sampled the core and arranged all laboratory analyses.
In addition to the drilling, SRK ES “spotters” were tasked with directing professional mountaineers across the near-vertical cliff faces of Nalunaq Mountain and Ship Mountain. This was the only way to take samples from outcrop hundreds of metres above the valley floor where gold mineralised grab samples had been historically collected from scree.
