VANCOUVER: Sitka Gold Corp. announced that drilling has commenced at its Alpha Gold Property located in Nevada’s prolific Carlin gold province.

Alpha Gold is located where the projection of the Cortez gold trend, which hosts several multi-million ounce gold deposits, intersects with the Garden Valley Anticline.

Permits for a 12-hole drill program have been secured to test a Carlin-type gold deposit target at Alpha Gold where the prime Late Devonian carbonate host horizon is believed to be preserved at the contact between the Webb formation and the Devil’s Gate formation.

The Webb-Devil’s Gate contact zone hosts McEwen Mining’s newly operational Gold Bar mine, located nearby on a parallel anticlinal trend, and is considered the most favourable host for gold mineralization in the Roberts Mountains.

Cor Coe, chief executive officer of Sitka, commented, “We are very pleased to begin our drill program at Alpha Gold. Our geological modeling estimates the Webb-Devil’s contact zone to be located approximately 350-550 m below surface at this initial drill location. We are excited to get the drill down to that depth and test the Carlin-type gold deposit potential of the Property.”

The Alpha Gold Project incorporates a stratigraphic and structural re-interpretation of the eastern Roberts Mountains based on geological mapping and a review of the literature maps and oil well and mineral exploration data from the region.

Soil geochemistry at Alpha is interpreted as distal leakage from a Carlin-type gold system in favorable stratigraphy at depth. The section at Alpha begins at surface with the Roberts Mountains allochthon, or “Upper Plate”. Rocks below the “Upper Plate” are expected to resemble those at Goldrush in the eastern Cortez District.

The Mississippian Webb Formation and a Devonian Shale are anticipated beneath the “Upper Plate” and correlate with the Blue Hill unit at Goldrush. The first critical marker is expected to be a phosphate lens horizon at the base of this unit (see Figure 4). The strata should very gradually become more calcareous below  the phosphate lens horizon and this would be analogous to the Horse Canyon Formation at Goldrush.

The Horse Canyon Formation equivalent strata are expected to transition into the Devils Gate limestone in the eastern Roberts Mountains. That stratigraphic horizon is expected to be an exceptionally fertile environment for Carlin-type gold mineralization, much more so than the Webb –Devils Gate contact seen in the western Roberts Mountains, which is affected by an unconformity.

Sitka Gold has acquired a 100% interest in the Alpha Gold Property, located along the southeast projection of the prolific Cortez Gold Trend in Eureka County, approximately 135 kilometres southwest of Elko, Nevada.