Yukon Metals Sharpens AZ Porphyry Target Ahead of Fall Drilling

0:15Welcome back to Mining Stock Daily. Ian Wagner here with a corporate update from our friends at Yukon Metals. Yukon Metals is a gold and copper and critical metals explorer with multiple projects across the Yukon. They trade on the CSE under the symbol YMC and on the OTCQB under the symbol YMMCF. We've spoken with Yukon Metals a number of times this year and our last conversation was in July, so I'd encourage any new listeners to go and check those episodes out. with us today to talk about the summer drilling and some magnetics. As CEO of Yukon Metals, Mr. Jim Coates. Jim, good to see you. Welcome back to the podcast.

0:56Absolutely. Thank you for having me back. Of course. So you guys just put out UAV Magnetic Survey results at your AZ project there in the Yukon, covering an area of about two and a half kilometers by three and a half kilometers that shows two structural trends converging on a zone that was not touched by your, you know, the drilling so far this year. And as you kind of walk us through what that means, why you guys did it, what you found and kind of does that convergence zone become a priority target? What are your key takeaways from that? Absolutely. So this summer is really only our second year of concentrated exploration on this Ized property, which is quite a large property in the western part of the Yukon up against the Alaska border.

1:46And one of our biggest problems with this property is that there's copper mineralization all over the surface. So we're seeing malachite, which is the green stained copper rocks and basically across the property. And we really needed to zoom in on one area. Last year, we had a hole that we drilled on an area of surface mineralization, and that one revealed potassic alteration. So we knew that when we saw the potassic alteration, we were getting close to a zone where the copper mineralization that we were after was being produced. And so that gave us a sort of a two kilometer radius that we knew that we had to look into and try and find the core of the system.

2:38And so this year we've been looking at all the techniques that we can use to define the geology in that area. And those include a large 3D induced polarization and resistivity survey. This follows up on a survey that we did last year just one line that provided the initial targeting. We did a three drill hole program, and these, even though that sounds like not very many holes, these went deep. Some of these were over 800 meters in depth, and we did those deep angled holes in order to tell if we were vectoring towards or away from the mineralization. And then this most recent piece of data was a UAV magnetic survey, so a drone mag survey.

3:23And as you mentioned, it's an area of about two and a half kilometers by two and a half to three kilometers. That magnetic survey showed us two trends in the magnetism, and these intersect in an area just to the east of where we drilled. And so this is a detailed map of the magnetic properties of the rocks and it's close enough to resolve individual geological features and so this shows us where we have intersecting trends in and these could be structures such as faults they could be mineralized zones but if we're looking for a porphyry target which is what we're looking for at az If we've got two of these intersecting either faults or other geological structures, that's an area where porphyries would have an easier time forming.

4:24And so by looking at this intersection and plotting it out and combining it with our existing drill data and with the induced polarization, we can zoom in from this roughly four square kilometer area into a zone only a few hundred meters wide. And that's where we can look at targeting our next drill holes. And this goes along with our exploration methodology of layering as many types of remote sensing data and geophysical data as possible to create essentially a Venn diagram, a series of interlocking circles. And where those circles all overlap, that's where you want to drill. Yeah, I'm looking at that map, right?

5:10And so seeing the hole from 2025, right? And then seeing the three holes from earlier this year, 6, 7, and 8, that are kind of just in that central area and seeing these two converging trends. I also want to note on one of this map, you guys have some copper parts per million information and obviously going from as low or less than 100 all the way to that up to 500 to 2000. And you've got a number of those holes around, those red holes, right, that's indicated the 500 parts per million and above. of those are along those converging areas and not too far from where you guys did drill. What does that tell you?

5:57And I mean, is this kind of informing that regardless of what assays come back, are you thinking, hey, we just, we might just move the drill rigs over a few, you know, to the east a little bit and see what we get from there? Exactly. And this was our strategy from the beginning was to, as I mentioned, gather as much data as we could, and especially looking at those surface soil samples and how the soil sample data where we've got high copper on the surface, as well as observing the right kind of mineralization on the surface. In this case, quartz serosite pyrite mineralization, again, on the surface that overlaps with the mag trend.

6:39And that allows us to move the holes over until we target into the center of the system. Yeah, there is that kind of that cluster a little bit, like just kind of east of there. So what does that look like then? Is that, you know, we've talked in the past about this being these early May, June being kind of the early summer drilling and then possibly a fall drilling season. Do you have plans to go back out in, I guess, the end of August now? So in next month here in September before the weather turns and do more drilling? Absolutely. Yes. And so that was how we had planned this summer was we do this initial batch of drill holes.

7:17We do the geophysics. Then we see if we're generating new targets in the vicinity and then come back in September. And if we've got a good enough target to put the drill on, we start drilling and drill right until the end of the season. which in the Yukon tends to be end of September, early October. And that's largely dictated by when the creeks that supply the water for the diamond drills freeze out. Okay. And so what, do you have a sense of what those holes will look like? Will those be another, those more deep holes there? Or how will you just kind of go as much as you can, as deep as you can before the weather turns?

7:56Exactly. So we're logging the drill core as it comes out of the hole. and our geologist on site judge when to cut the hole off when the mineralization is no longer looking promising. So in the case of where we're drilling deep holes, that's because we're keeping seeing visual signs that we should keep on going. And while we do set a target depth when we start drilling, if there's reason for us to keep going, we will keep going. Follow the hole. um okay well yeah so i mean i i know you have essays pending from az there i mean you also did i and so just for context i think you said that three holes two thousand meters you also did three thousand meters at birch that was the other priority target for this summer you know what can you tell us about what you guys found there you still waiting for essay results or any any kind of updates there exactly so at birch we used exactly the same methodology as at az and that was this layering of the drone magnetics plus the 3d induced polarization and then drilling we're just receiving the 3d ip now so we'll be examining that in the next week or so and the drone mag will lay over top of that.

9:24We drilled, yes, as you mentioned, 3 ,000 meters, testing both our existing SCARN mineralization that we targeted last year, as well as another zone to the south where we've been looking at geochemical evidence for another nearby system. and that's something that we've been examining since we started work on the property. Okay. Just to zoom out a little bit, this is your first full summer there as CEO. I mean, I'm just curious kind of how it's been for you. What have gotten you excited? What have you maybe learned and how are you thinking about things kind of moving into the fall? Yes, this is my first full summer as CEO.

10:13And quite frankly, it's gone really well. This is one of the smoothest field seasons that I've ever managed. And that's in over 20 years of running field exploration projects in the Yukon. everything just went well the crew was excellent our program started and finished on time and we were able to execute our exploration program in exactly the sequence that we'd planned it and what's got me excited is just that we're seeing this essentially a copper trend in the western part of the Yukon that hasn't been systematically explored before. And looking particularly for evidence for these large porphyry systems that supply the majority of the world's copper, and how we could get several more of those in the Yukon.

11:09Because there's what we're calling the Yukon porphyry gap, and that's a gap in a chain of porphyries that extends up the west coast of South and North America, all the way into Alaska. And there's a gap in the Yukon with only one porphyry copper deposit, and that's Western Copper and Gold's Casino, which is only around 100 kilometers away from Birch. And so the more evidence that I see of a potential copper district in the Western Yukon, the more excited I am to go chase that down. Yeah, I mean, how has the field activity been this summer there? Does it feel like people have woken up to the Yukon and there's a lot of activity there?

11:55Does it feel like prospectors, developers, explorers, drillers, everything? Is that just seeing a high level of activity? I have never seen the Yukon exploration busier than it is now. And, uh, it's the trying to book a helicopter for even an hour or two flight is something that you have to do months in advance. Um, the drill rigs, I think every drill rig that's available is spinning right now. It's as busy as I've ever seen it. So the Yukon is definitely experiencing a boom in exploration right now. Okay. Well, listen, one last question, just a quick kind of maybe follow up from something we talked about in July.

12:42You guys had staked at TUML, right? Your tungsten project. I'm just curious if you're there, and I might be using the wrong terminology here, but I don't remember if you guys were applying for a permit for next year from a drilling perspective or what exactly the next step was there. But I wanted to make sure to ask you about TUML and sort of what's going on. Absolutely. So the tungsten part of Yukon Metals portfolio is an underappreciated part of our, I guess, of our assets. We've got roughly a half dozen properties and that's anchored by RISB, which was a previously drilled project in the southeastern part of the Yukon.

13:28we are we staked the the tumble trend which is was discovered by union carbide in uh the 1960s that was relatively high grade tungsten discovered on surface we staked the entire mountain range that was found on and we actually already have a permit to work on tumble um okay become quite quick and turning around early stage permits. And we'll be sending field crews out to do our reconnaissance work on that in the upcoming weeks. Okay, great. So you'll have some work there here before the season closing there at Tumul, now to inform sort of a drill campaign for 2027, presumably? Yes. Well, so that's, like I said, it's the early stage scouting work.

14:20We'll decide once we're out there whether or not we've got the targets for a further follow-up campaign. But this is part of our general early-stage generative work over the portfolio where we've got crews that go out to about seven properties this year, I believe. And they spend a week on each property doing early-stage. So geological mapping, soil sampling, assessment of the terrain, and picking drill targets for follow-up next year's. Okay. So yeah, so you want to make sure you do steps one through three before you start moving into the drilling. I guess with that, I mean, you know, take that same question and just apply it to the other projects, right?

15:05Like you mentioned, you've got field crews out doing those early stage work. What else are you guys finding out there, whether or not it is at RISB or TAML or some of or other, you know, base metals projects? What other sort of color should people know or hear, especially if they're coming to you guys kind of for the first time? Exactly. Well, even though our focus very much remains on searching for these large copper gold porphyries in the western part of the Yukon, we do have a portfolio of 19 projects that are, it's 250 square kilometers of landmass in the Yukon in northern British Columbia.

15:45One project that I'm really interested in, and I actually was just out on site last week investigating, it was our Carter Gulch prospect, which is a small property which is actually almost within sight of our offices at the Whitehorse Airport in Yukon. And this is where we're getting some extremely high-grade gold from exposed veins on the surface. so we put out some results last year where we were getting up over 200 grams per ton in just grab samples and i'd never been out there myself and uh managed to get out yes like i said last week and uh you never really understand what the terrain looks like from google earth you have to go out there to get a sense of where you could potentially put a drill rig or what the logistics constraints are or just where the little exposure of mineralization you're seeing on the surface might extend to.

16:45And so that's very illuminating for me is just being able to actually set boots on the ground and get to understand a property from a more holistic perspective. Sure. And so what stage is that at just to where you guys add in sort of that development pipeline? So that follows our standard approach of even if we have discovered something relatively high grade on the surface, we don't drill it immediately. We do our geological mapping, we do the geophysics, we do our targeting in a repeatable manner, and then we come up with the best possible targets. And so we'll just follow that protocol with each one of our properties.

17:30And so with that one specifically, were you able to do geophysics and soil samples and mapping yet for there? Or is that still to come? No, we've done the mapping and now we've got the logistics figured out so that we can plan to do the soils and the rest of it properly. The driller in you wanted to get out and sort of see, well, hey, where can we actually put the rig at? Oh, absolutely. I have to constantly hold myself back because I see these things and I immediately start building a drill pad in my mind and targeting the drill at what seems like the most obvious place to put a hole. But it's really important to do the full methodology and assess the site completely before just randomly punching holes.

18:20Well, listen, Jim, that's a great place to leave it for today. I think we'll look to catch up with you again here as you guys get into your fall drill campaign and release some of those assays from AZ to Birch. But I appreciate you coming by, taking time today to give everybody an update on what you guys got going on. Excellent. Okay. Thank you very much, Ian, and looking forward to talking again. That's Jim Coates, CEO of UConn Metals. They trade on the CSE under the symbol YMC and on the OTCQB under the symbol YMMCF.

19:01The information presented should not be considered investment advice. Mining Stock Daily and its affiliates are not responsible for any loss arising from any investment decision in connection with the material presented herein. Please do your own research or speak with a licensed financial representative