Aben Minerals Ltd. (TSX-V: ABM) (OTCQB: ABNAF) (Frankfurt: R26) (“Aben” or “the Company”) is pleased to announce that the final results have been received from the recently completed QMAGT geophysical survey at the 7,400 hectare, 100% owned Justin Gold Project in the Yukon Territory. The Justin Property is host to widespread prolific gold mineralization in the form of sheeted veins, vein arrays and breccias, stockworks and skarn hosted precious metal mineralization, yet the Property remains under-explored. The QMAGT survey was flown over the Lost Ace and POW zones, the two main gold (Au) mineralized areas at Justin, as well as the highly prospective area between them.
President and CEO Riley Trimble states, “The results from the 2024 airborne geophysical survey combined with historical drilling will be used to plan a comprehensive drill program at the Justin Gold Project. The project has two distinct types of gold mineralization within the Tombstone belt – intrusion related at POW zone and orogenic at Lost Ace. We are planning to drill test both target zones as well as the area between where these systems potentially meet. Our objective is to become a key company in this region of the Tombstone Gold Belt as we believe it could become a major gold district within the Yukon.”
Target Zones at Justin
The Lost Ace and POW zones are located 2 kilometers apart and offer two distinct mineralization styles. The POW zone is interpreted to be an Intrusion Related Gold System (IRGS) with precious metal mineralization hosted within and adjacent to the Justin Stock, a mid-Cretaceous intrusive body located at the southern end of the well-endowed Tombstone Gold Belt. Historic drilling at the POW zone has returned 1.25 g/t Au over 60.0 m (JN11-009) and 2.52 g/t Au and 29.5 g/t Ag over 12.0 m (JN11-010). The Justin Stock, part of the prolific Tombstone-Tungsten Plutonic Suite, has created a large alteration aureole and robust hydrothermal system over large portions of the Justin claim block.
The Lost Ace zone represents an Orogenic Gold System with gold hosted in quartz-arsenopyrite-pyrite stockworks found at the contact between quartz feldspar pebble conglomerates and fine-grained phyllitic rocks. This type of mineralization is remarkably similar in style and geologic setting to the immediately adjacent 3 Aces Project, owned by Seabridge Gold. A network of well-developed NNE and NW-SE faults have served as conduits for precious metal bearing fluids emanating from the Justin Stock and other buried intrusive bodies in the area. The proximity of these two distinct mineralization styles highlights the potential for the Justin Property to host overprinting mineralizing systems.
2024 QMAGT Survey
The QMAGT is a state-of-the-art geophysical survey technology with a proven track record in mineral exploration. The survey data provides detailed directional information with enhanced image quality that will be utilized to define high-priority targets for a planned drill program. The high-quality geophysical data will enable Aben personnel to define the location of fault structures (fluid pathways) and strongly magnetic geologic bodies (magnetite-bearing skarn). The annotated magnetic response image below depicts the prevalence of the NNE and NW-SE oriented fault structures that have conducted mineralized fluid outboard of the Justin Stock, located at the bottom margin of each image. Both the Lost Ace and POW zones are located in areas that host complex structural intersections alongside bodies with strong magnetic response. The region between the two zones hosts coincident geophysical and geochemical (gold in soil) anomalies but remains under-explored and undrilled. In 2019, a rotary air blast (RAB) drill was used for the initial drill test of the Lost Ace zone, but the presence of abundant near-surface groundwater hampered the effort and limited the holes to < 35 m depth. Future drill programs will focus on expanding the existing gold mineralization at POW, properly testing the Lost Ace zone, and evaluating highly prospective targets in the area between the two zones.
Justin Gold Project
The 7,400-hectare Justin Gold property is 100% owned by Aben Minerals Ltd located in the southeast Yukon in the Tintina Gold Belt and adjacent to Seabridge Gold’s 3 Aces Project. Aben has drilled a total of 4972.0 metres in 21 diamond drill holes across four zones of interest. Drilling in 2011 and 2012 at the POW Zone successfully discovered:
- Hole JN11009: 1.25 g/t Au over 60.0m (including 2.47 g/t Au over 21.0m)
- Hole JN11010: 2.52 g/t Au and 29.53 g/t Ag over 12.0m
Additionally, trenching in 2018 at the Lost Ace Zone, located 2 kilometers northwest along strike from the POW Zone returned values ranging from trace to 20.8 g/t gold over 4.4m including 88.2 g/t gold (Au) over 1.0m. The discovery at Lost Ace highlights the existence of a multi-phase hydrothermal system with the potential for overprinting mineralizing systems.
For further information regarding the project, please refer to the NI 43-101 Technical Report – Justin Gold Project 2021.