Kirkland Lake Discoveries Corp. announced that Phase 2 of its 10,000-m drill campaign at the Kirkland Lake Project has commenced on the Lucky Strike Property. The Company previously completed Phase 1 in September 2023.

The 10,000-m drill program is divided into three phases: Phase 1 consisted of nine holes (2,991 m) drilled on the Goodfish-Kirana property Phase 2 has now commenced and the team will drill approximately 4,000 m at the Hurricane Intrusive Zone, KL East Phase 3 will follow up on Phase 1 and 2 drilling with approximately 3,000 m The drill program will initially aim to test the Hurricane Intrusive Zone, which was the subject of prospecting, mapping, and airborne magnetics in 2023. The airborne magnetics program flown in Q2, defined a three-kilometre-long by seven-kilometre-wide anomaly which was further ground-truthed by Kirkland Lake Discoveries in Third Quarter 2023. Ground-truthing identified silicified and intense epidote-altered intermediate intrusions cut by quartz stockwork veinlets and pyrite mineralization at the Whiskey Jack target.

Whiskey Jack is situated on an ESE-WSE trending structure on the margin of a magnetic high, interpreted as the contact between mafic volcanics and a syenite intrusion, with a near-vertical structural reading, which may indicate a conduit for the hydrothermal fluids and mineralization in the area. Drilling will test the continuation of this alteration zone at depth. The Jensen target is proximal to the southeast margin along a magnetic high, within a localized, strong shear zone hosted within a mafic, syenite, and quartz vein sequence.

Strong potassium feldspar, hematite and epidote alteration with pyrite and chalcopyrite mineralization characterize the Jensen target and bear the highest similarity to the rocks and mineralization found at Agnico Eagle Mines Limited's (Agnico) Upper Beaver deposit, which is six km to the southwest. Assays of grab samples from the 2023 field program returned up to 1.93 g/t Au with 0.73% Cu. Upper Beaver is a gold-copper deposit that is mainly hosted in the Upper Beaver alkalic intrusive complex and the surrounding basalts it intruded, and is associated with disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite, and magnetite-sulphide veining associated with strong magmatic-hydrothermal alteration.

The mineralization occurs as elongated tabular bodies that strike northeast, dip steeply northwest and plunge 65 degrees to the northeast. The mineralization has been defined along a 400-m strike length from surface to a depth of 1,800 m and it remains open at depth. Queenston Mining sold the 1.1-million-ounce (Moz) deposit to Osisko Mining Corp.

(Osisko) for CAD 550 million in 2012. Osisko, in turn, was bought by Agnico in 2014 and Agnico has since expanded the resource at Upper Beaver. As at December 31, 2022, Upper Beaver had approximately 1.4 Moz of gold and 20,000 tonnes (t) of copper in underground probable mineral reserves (8.0 Mt grading 5.43 g/t gold and 0.25% copper); 403,000 oz of gold and 5,100 t of copper in underground indicated mineral resources (3.6 Mt grading 3.45 g/t Au and 0.14% copper); and 1.4 Moz Au of gold and 17,300 t of copper in underground inferred mineral resources (8.7 Mt grading 5.07 g/t Au and 0.20% copper).

An updated mineral resource for the Upper Beaver Deposit was expected in late 2023 but has yet to be released.