The Alligator Lake Gold Project (“Alligator”, or the “Project”) is located approximately 165 kilometres (103 miles) northeast of La Ronge, SK, Canada. The Project consists of five claims totaling 2,973.32 hectares (7,347.24 acres) and is prospective for high-grade gold mineralization.
On January 27, 2021, ALX announced the signing of a binding letter agreement for an option to earn up to an 80% interest in Alligator. On February 22, 2021 the Company announced that it had executed a definitive agreement incorporating the terms and conditions of the previously-announced binding letter agreement.
Highlights of the Alligator Lake Project
2021 Drilling Program
On February 22, 2021, ALX announced that a diamond drilling program was underway at Alligator. Subsequently on March 15, 2021, ALX announced that the diamond drilling program had been completed at Alligator. The 2021 drilling successfully intersected the targeted Broken Hammer Shear Zone, which is known to be prospective for high-grade gold mineralization.
On March 25, 2021, ALX announced visible gold was encountered in two recently-completed drill holes at the Alligator. Visible gold was encountered in hole AL21-05 in five locations between 6.6 metres and 62.2 metres, and in at least two locations in hole AL21-06 at 26.7 metres and at 27.15 metres. The overall grade of gold mineralization in the completed drill holes is currently unknown.
ALX awaits the receipt of all geochemical analyses from SRC Geoanalytical Laboratories in Saskatoon, SK performed on core samples collected in the program, including fire assays for gold mineralization and metallic gold assays where coarse or visible gold is present in some sections of the drill holes. The receipt of drill results is taking longer than expected due to high processing volumes and pandemic-related delays at the laboratory. Results of the 2021 drilling program will be released as soon as possible following their receipt, compilation and interpretation.
The Phase 1 drilling program consisted of six diamond NQ-size drill holes totaling 617.6 metres (2,026 feet) focussed along an approximate 1,000-metre section of the Broken Hammer Shear Zone, where ALX had previously sampled a sulphide-bearing quartz vein in outcrop at the Broken Hammer Showing that returned 504.0 grams/tonne (“g/t”) gold (16.13 oz/ton), and 46.2 g/t silver by fire assay. The 2021 drilling targeted a mineralized quartz vein system first discovered in 1995, and preliminary observations by ALX geologists during logging of the first four holes confirm quartz veining with associated sulphides.
2020 Site Visit by ALX
On October 2020, ALX carried out its first site visit to Alligator and collected fifteen rock samples from areas of historical bedrock showings. An outcrop sample taken by ALX at the Broken Hammer Zone showing returned 504.0 grams/tonne (“g/t”) gold (16.13 oz/ton), and 46.2 g/t silver by fire assay. A follow-up total metallic gold assay returned 547.0 g/t gold (17.50 oz/ton). Twelve of the fifteen outcrop samples collected by ALX were anomalous in gold (i.e., greater than 0.1 g/t gold), with four other high-grade samples returning between 2.71 g/t gold and 22.8 g/t gold.
Details of the Acquisition
Within five (5) business days of ARL's acceptance of the letter agreement, ALX made a non-refundable $3,000 cash payment to ARL. During the period of forty-five (45) days from ARL's acceptance of this letter agreement (the "Due Diligence period") ALX had the exclusive right to conduct due diligence on the Project, at its sole discretion and expense.
ALX and ARL agreed to settle the terms of a definitive agreement incorporating the terms and conditions of the letter agreement within a 45-day period following the conclusion of ALX’s due diligence. The definitive agreement was executed on February 18, 2021 and will provide ALX the option to earn up to an 80% interest in the Project over a four (4) year period from the effective date of the definitive agreement in consideration for: (a) cash payments totaling $150,000, (b) the issuance of common shares of ALX to ARL totaling 1,500,000 common shares; and (c) ALX incurring eligible expenditures totaling $1,250,000 with respect to the Project, as further described below.
ALX can initially earn at its option a 51% interest in the Project (the "First Option"), by meeting the following schedule of conditions:
ALX can earn an additional 29% interest in the Project (the "Second Option"), to earn a cumulative 80% interest in the Project, by meeting the following schedule of conditions:
ALX, at its option, can accelerate the cash payments and common share issuances described above.
Any excess eligible expenditures incurred on the Project within an earn-in time period will be credited to successive earn-in time periods. Any deficiency in the amount of eligible expenditures incurred can be satisfied by a cash payment made by ALX to ARL equal to the deficiency on or before the applicable due date. All common shares issued by ALX will be subject to a 4-month hold period as per Canadian securities laws.
Upon ALX obtaining an 80% interest in the Project (by exercise of both the First Option and the Second Option), ALX and ARL shall form a joint venture in respect of the development of the Project (with ALX as operator), with the terms of the joint venture agreement to be negotiated in good faith between the parties. Alligator is subject to an underlying 2.5% net smelter returns royalty (“NSR”) on the sale of valuable minerals from the Project.
The Definitive Agreement in respect of ALX’s acquisition of up to an 80% interest in Alligator was accepted by the TSXV on March 1, 2021.
About Alligator
Geology
The Project is underlain by Precambrian Shield rocks of the Central Metavolcanic Belt (“CVB”), part of the La Ronge Domain. Northeast-striking and steeply northwest-dipping upper greenschist to lower amphibolite facies ultramafic to mafic metavolcanic rocks of the CVB are intruded by ultramafic to mafic sills. These ultramafic to mafic rocks are structurally underlain by similarly northeast-striking and northwest-dipping meta-arkose and calcareous metagreywackes of the McLennan‐Sickle Group.
The dominant structural feature at Alligator is the Byers Fault, which strikes in a northeasterly direction and dips to the northwest. The Byers Fault can be traced along the southeast shore of Alligator Lake and through a series of muskeg and small lake-filled topographic lows. The Byers Fault is recognized as a “first‐order” controlling structure for many “second‐order” quartz‐sulphide‐carbonate healed shear and tensional vein type gold deposits and occurrences in the greater Waddy Lake area (Schwann, 1991). In the Waddy Lake area, however, the Byers Fault trends approximately east‐west before stepping/flexing into a more northeasterly trend in the Contact Lake-Alligator Lake area. Large‐scale “bends” in fault systems are known to be the preferential location for dilatancies that could host gold-bearing quartz vein swarms.
South of Alligator Lake, a northeast striking contact between the metavolcanics and the metasediments, is marked by a topographic lineament with sporadic outcrop displaying evidence of shearing, identified as the Radiant Shear Zone. The McLennan Lake Tectonic Zone (“MLTZ”), which is parallel to, but located approximately 2 kilometres southeast of the Byers Fault, is a major regional tectonic feature separating rocks of the Central Metavolcanic Belt from metasedimentary rocks of the MacLean Lake Belt to the east.
History of Exploration
During the late 1960s, Sherritt Gordon Mines Limited (Sherritt Gordon) carried out regional airborne magnetic and electromagnetic (“EM”) surveys over areas of the Project followed by ground EM surveying and the completion of six diamond drill holes (Saskatchewan Mineral Assessment Database (“SMAD”) File #64D‐0001 and #64D04‐0037). Three holes were drilled to the north and three holes to the south of Alligator Lake. All six holes intersected iron sulphide (pyrite and pyrrhotite) concentrations in metasedimentary rocks, quartz veins and “amphibolite” with the best result of 0.13% nickel and 0.12% copper over 1.37 metres. Sherritt Gordon’s drilling explained the cause of the shallow EM anomalies but because of their focus on base metals exploration, few gold or PGE assays were reported from drill cores, leaving the precious metals potential of these rocks essentially untested.
The most significant precious metals occurrence at Alligator is the Broken Hammer Showing, a 1.5 to 4.0 metre wide and 55 metre long north-northeast trending quartz vein, which contains visible gold in association with molybdenum (Heigh, 1995). Historical surface samples collected at the Broken Hammer Showing returned up to 707.8 g/t gold (20.5 oz/ton) (Collins et al, 1989). In 1995, Uranerz Exploration and Mining (“UEM”) drilled four holes at 100-metre intervals along the Broken Hammer Shear Zone. The best intersection was 7.31 g/t gold (0.23 oz/ton) over 1.5 metres in hole AL‐02, beneath the site where visible gold was discovered (Avery and Leppin, 1995).
The results of a summer 2013 field program confirmed that the Broken Hammer Showing is a deformed (boudinaged) quartz vein that has potentially been modified into a series of moderately plunging (50° to 70°) shoots (Jiricka, 2014). These interpreted shoots do not appear to have been specifically targeted or adequately tested by the 1995 UEM drill program. The areas just to the north of drill holes AL‐01 and AL02 could represent the down‐plunge extension of high‐grade gold mineralization identified in the Broken Hammer Showing / Broken Hammer North Extension Showing trenches and should be tested by diamond drilling at shallow depths.
National Instrument 43-101 Disclosure
The technical information on this web page has been reviewed and approved by Sierd Eriks, P.Geo., President and Chief Geologist of ALX, who is a Qualified Person in accordance with the Canadian regulatory requirements set out in National Instrument 43-101.
Readers are cautioned that much of the technical information described on this web page is historical in nature; however, the historical information is deemed credible and was produced by professional geoscientists in the years discussed. Historical geochemical results quoted in this news release were taken directly from assessment work filings published by the Government of Saskatchewan and other regulatory filings. Management cautions that historical results were collected and reported by past operators and have not been verified nor confirmed by its Qualified Person, but create a scientific basis for ongoing work in the Alligator property area.
Geochemical results from samples collected by ALX in 2020 described on this web page were shipped to SRC Geoanalytical Laboratories in Saskatoon, SK and analyzed using a 4-acid digestion with Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (ICP-MS). Gold, platinum and palladium were analyzed by fire assay techniques. Samples that returned > 3000 ppb gold by fire assay were further analyzed by metallic gold assay.
