Yukon Metals drills mineralized skarn at Birch project
2025-09-03 16:38 ET – News Release
Mr. Rory Quinn reports
MULTIPLE MINERALIZED SKARN HORIZONS INTERSECTED AT THE BIRCH COPPER-GOLD PROJECT
Yukon Metals Corp. has provided an update from its exploration activities on its 100-per-cent-owned 7,000-hectare Birch property, located 65 kilometres northeast of Burwash Landing, Yukon, and 200 kilometres northwest of Whitehorse. The 2025 drill program is well under way and has achieved its initial objective of intersecting skarn horizons thought to be responsible for a 1.4-kilometre-long gold- and copper-in-soil anomaly grading up to 0.99 gram per tonne Au and 0.24 per cent Cu, as well as surface rock samples up to 14.1 grams per tonne Au and 2.42 per cent Cu.
Highlights:
- A total of 1,100 metres of diamond drilling has been completed across three pad locations down to depths of up to 400 metres, with all holes intersecting mineralized skarn horizons; assay results are pending.
- Near-surface mineralization beginning at approximately 25 metres, and interval widths up to 46 metres in drill core, includes a thick, continuous interval of intensely skarn altered rock from 256.5 to 302.5 metres: true thicknesses currently unknown.
- The mineralization style suggests the potential for a large, multistage skarn system developed along the marble-schist contacts and intrusive margins.
“Multiple zones of mineralization have been encountered from near surface and substantially at depth. These early results suggest the Birch system has both scale and continuity, and we look forward to receiving assays to help guide the next steps of exploration,” said Rory Quinn, president and chief executive officer of Yukon Metals.
The continuing diamond drill program at Birch is testing a 1.4-kilometre-long and up-to-400-metre-wide area of anomalous gold- and copper-in-soil values coincident with mapped limestone, schist horizons and cross-cutting felsic intrusions.
The 2025 drill program has intersected multiple zones of retrograde skarn mineralization overprinting prograde skarn development with zones of massive garnet. Other rock types include prominent marble units and multiple phases of cross-cutting intrusive dikes. The thickness of the mineralized zones in drill core, defined by the extent of prograde skarn with pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite present, ranges from 0.2 to 46 metres.
The initial three drill holes at Birch intersected a similar package of interbedded schist, marble and intrusive dikes that are variably altered.
Hole BR25-001 intersected multiple shallow mineralized horizons, including silicified schist with minor disseminated and vein-hosted pyrrhotite beginning around 60-metre depth, and a broader zone of stronger skarn horizon between 135 to 157 metres with chalcopyrite appearing alongside pyrrhotite in disseminated, vein and semi-massive textures.
Hole BR25-002, drilled steeper from the same pad, intersected mineralization as shallow as 50 metres within chlorite-amphibole skarn, continuing through multiple variably mineralized skarn horizons in many cases in association with intrusive contacts. A strongly pyrrhotite-chalcopyrite-pyrite mineralized skarn horizon occurs at 125 metres on the top contact of a granodiorite dike.
Further down hole it occurs on the bottom contact of a feldspar porphyry dike unit with chalcopyrite and pyrrhotite.
Hole BR25-003, a 250-metre stepout to the east, encountered near-surface mineralization beginning at approximately 25 metres within skarn along the schist-marble contact as well as a thick, continuous interval of intensely skarn altered rock from 256.5 to 302.5 metres.
In addition to skarn-hosted sulphides, BR25-001 and BR25-002 also intersected zones of sheeted quartz-calcite veining above the main skarn horizons, suggesting a broader hydrothermal footprint to the mineralizing system.
Preliminary observations of the drilling show that mineralization is present near surface at shallow depths (approximately 25 metres to 60 metres) as well as in laterally extensive skarn horizons exceeding 20 metres to 40 metres in thickness at depth.
This mineralization style suggests the potential for a large, multistage skarn system developed along the marble-schist contacts and intrusive margins.
About the Birch project
Yukon Metals owns 100 per cent of the helicopter-accessed Birch project located 65 kilometres northeast of the community of Burwash Landing. The Birch project area is dominated by frost-heaved boulders in unglaciated terrain, with outcrop present on steeper ridges. The project lies predominantly within the Finlayson assemblage of the Yukon-Tanana terrane, consisting of variably carbonaceous schist and quartzite, marble, garnet amphibolite, and rare metaplutonic rocks.
The Yukon-Tanana Terrane structurally overlies the Ruby Range batholith which is regionally mapped in the northeastern portion of the property occurring as Ruby Range quartz-feldspar porphyry and Rhyolite Creek porphyry and intermediate and felsic volcanic rock. Project-level mapping indicates the geology of the area comprises schists and marble units, moderately to strongly oxidized felsic intrusive, and patchy oxidized porphyritic rhyolite dikes.
About Yukon Metals Corp.
Yukon Metals is a well-financed exploration company with a 17-project portfolio covering more than 43,000 hectares. Built on over 30 years of Berdahl family prospecting, the same team behind Snowline Gold’s district-scale assets, Yukon Metals provides exposure to copper, gold, silver and critical metals. While advancing high-priority drill targets at the AZ and Birch copper-gold systems and the Star River gold-silver-copper project, the company is also conducting generative exploration across its broader portfolio to develop the next pipeline of discovery opportunities. Guided by an experienced leadership team with technical, financial and Yukon expertise, the company is well positioned to unlock new mineral discoveries across the Yukon territory.
Yukon Metals is committed to fostering sustainable growth and prosperity within Yukon’s local communities, while also enhancing shareholder value. Rooted in a philosophy of inclusiveness and shared prosperity, the company’s strategy offers both local community members and investors the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from its success.
Yukon-based and local first nation contractors engaged
Diamond drilling at the Birch project is operated by New Age Drilling Solutions, a Yukon-based contractor, in partnership with Vision Quest Drilling, a Kluane First Nations citizen-owned company. Camp support services for the exploration activities is being provided by Kagani, a Kluane First Nations citizen-owned enterprise in partnership with longstanding Yukon-based exploration contractor, Archer Cathro.
QA/QC (quality assurance/quality control)
Diamond drill core from the 2025 program at the Birch project is in the process of being logged, photographed and sawn in half using a diamond-blade core saw. One-half of the core will be submitted for geochemical analysis, while the other half will be retained for future reference.
Prospecting rock samples in 2024 were sent to ALS Minerals for analysis with sample preparation in Whitehorse, Yukon, and analysis in North Vancouver, B.C.
Rock samples taken while prospecting referenced in this release are selective in nature and collected to determine the presence or absence of mineralization and may not be representative of the mineralization hosted on the project.
Qualified person
The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Helena Kuikka, PGeo, vice-president of exploration for Yukon Metals and a qualified person (as defined by National Instrument 43-101).
Yukon
Yukon remains one of the world’s last underexplored mineral belts, offering exceptional discovery potential. The territory is home to a highly skilled and conscientious local work force, shaped by generations of exploration experience coupled with a deep respect for the land.
Recent major discoveries with local roots, such as Snowline Gold’s Rogue project — Valley Discovery, highlight the Yukon’s potential to generate fresh district-scale mining opportunities.
We seek Safe Harbor.
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