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You could tell just by looking at the core from the hole.
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Western Alaska Minerals had tapped into a major intersection of silver-lead-zinc sulphides with last year’s drilling on its Waterpump Creek target. They knew it on sight and rushed the core to the lab to get confirmation.
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| The base metal in the key interval from Hole 9 at Waterpump Creek was obvious.
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What came back was one of the most impressive intervals drilled last year. Hole 9 from last year’s drilled returned 9.1 meters (true thickness) of 522 g/t silver, 22.5% zinc and 14.4% lead (or 1,886 g/t silver equivalent).
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Using today’s silver prices, that rock is worth $1,663 per tonne. Given that, it’s easy to see why Western Alaska’s whole focus has shifted to drilling Waterpump Creek.
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As you’re about to see, drills will soon start turning on a program to extend the mineralization around the hole and, hopefully, prove up a major new carbonate replacement deposit (“CRD”) discovery.
With a tight share structure and a still-modest market cap, Western Alaska Minerals is a compelling bet on discovery in an underexplored part of Alaska.
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The chart below comparing the grades of Hole 9 to some of the world’s richest silver mines underscores just how high-grade this hit is.
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The hit from Hole 9 at Waterpump Creek compares favorably with the average grades of the world’s Top 10 primary silver mines.
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Granted, this comparison pits a single drill hole against the reserves of the world’s primary silver mines. But the point is that Hole 9 featured truly extraordinary grades of silver and base metals — and while the average grade of an eventual deposit here would almost assuredly be lower, you simply couldn’t ask for a better start.
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And the CRD style of deposit that Western Alaska is chasing here is the stuff that majors looking to take out a project salivate over.
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Often associated with large-scale magmatic systems, CRD deposits typically host high-grade and high-margin silver-lead-zinc mineralization and have favorable metallurgy.
As an example, South 32 recently purchased the Taylor-Sunnyside CRD for C$1.8 billion. In other words, if Western Alaska can prove up scale at this deposit, a lucrative takeout could be in the offing.
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Not Just A One-Hole Wonder
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Plus, as you can see from the table below, Hole 9 combines with four historic holes to demonstrate some potential scale at Waterpump Creek.
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The first three holes were drilled by Anaconda Mining in the mid-1980s before Atlantic Richfield, which owned Anaconda, decided to close the division down. Another hole was drilled in 2005 that hit 608 g/t silver, 18.4% lead and 27.3% zinc over 6.6 meters.
Taken together with Hole 9, these holes cover a 50-by-100-meter area of the manto at Waterpump Creek. Given the grades involved, every 100-meter by 100-meter block added to the mineralized area at these grades would project to as much 16 million ounces of silver-equivalent.
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Potential For A World-Class Resource
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If Western Alaska’s work on the project can extend the mineralized footprint to 200 by 500 meters, the resource could well reach world-class potential for a primary silver mine.
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We’re certainly not there yet, but given the high-grade nature of the interval from Hole 9 (and the historic holes), we can’t ignore the very real potential for Waterpump Creek to become a major mine in its own right.
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And it certainly wouldn’t be a first for the team at Western Alaska. CEO Kit Marrs has over 30 years of experience in Alaska, including being project manager for the Illinois Creek project of which Waterpump Creek is a part.
Chief Exploration Officer Joe Piekenbrock has 35 years of exploration experience and has won awards for the massive Donlin gold and Bornite copper projects.
Add in technical adviser Dr. Peter Megaw and his world-renowned expertise on CRDs, and you have a bit of a “Dream Team” when it comes to making a new discovery.
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The leverage that the work at Waterpump Creek offers on rising silver prices is exceptional…but pales in comparison to the potential offered by the chance for a world-class silver discovery.
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With silver trading at $25/oz and lead and zinc performing well, it won’t take too many more high-grade hits here to send Western Alaska Minerals share price soaring.
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