Announcement • Mar 14
Alaska Silver Corp Announces 6,000-Meter Drill Program for Illinois Creek Project
Alaska Silver Corp. announced a fully-funded intensive summer 2026 exploration program - including a minimum of 6,000 m of diamond drilling - for its 32,737-hectare (80,895 acre), 100%-owned Illinois Creek Silver-Gold-Lead-Zinc and Gallium project located in western Alaska. The Company will utilize two company-owned drill rigs, with simultaneous surface exploration and trenching. Activity should begin in early June. The 2026 drilling program will focus on multiple priority targets at the high-grade Waterpump Creek deposit and the newly discovered Silver Sage Zone, along with scout drilling of other high priority targets. Alaska Silver has delineated a significant high-grade Ag-Pb-Zn Inferred Resource at Waterpump Creek with a grade of 980 grams per tonne silver equivalent, interpreted to be part of a much larger integrated Carbonate Replacement Deposit ("CRD") system. This resource terminates abruptly against a post-mineral fault making finding the continuation of the mineralization across the fault a prime target. The Company's limited 2025 Waterpump Creek program consisted of only four drill holes totaling 2,057 m. Two holes intersected the post-mineral fault zone, providing critical insight into the structural architecture of the area and the conduits that focused mineralizing fluids into carbonate-hosted traps. Two other holes intersected altered carbonate host rocks south of the fault, which clearly indicates that mineralization continues south of the post-mineral fault. Aggressive drilling is planned for 2026 to better understand the structure, locate mineralization in the south block and follow that mineralization back towards its source. Alaska Silver discovered the Silver Sage zone in early July 2025 through trenching along a 1.5 km-long trend of untested historical soil anomalies. The work outlined a 550 m-long, deeply weathered breccia zone containing silver-bearing galena and cerussite (lead carbonate mineral). Trench sampling returned numerous high-grade silver-lead results, including multiple samples above 310 g/t silver (10 oz/ton) and values up to 1,235 g/t silver (40 oz/ton), with gold values eaching 0.55 g/t. Silver Sage is interpreted as another key mineralization center within the overall Illinois Creek-Waterpump Creek CRD system. Initial 2025 drilling comprised nine short, widely spaced holes totaling 906.5 m, designed to determine stratigraphy and structural controls. Four holes intersected significant localized silver and lead mineralization with anomalous zinc, gold exceeding 1 g/t locally, and copper locally approaching 1%. This shallow drilling program showed that mineralization is thoroughly oxidized, with evidence of zinc leaching, and is hosted at the top of reactive carbonate rocks beneath an impermeable schist horizon, consistent with a CRD setting. Based on the 2025 results, Alaska Silver has designed a 2026 summer drilling program to target the feeder structures for Silver Sage and locate coherent sulfide mineralization at depth. In addition to the planned drilling at Waterpump Creek and Silver Sage, Alaska Silver will advance a regional exploration initiative during the 2026 field season, reflecting the Company's evolving interpretation of the Illinois Creek district as having two carbonate replacement deposit-porphyry ("CRD- PPY") centers. with significant CRD potential developed within reactive carbonate stratigraphy surrounding each center. The first center (or "hub") is the well-established Illinois Creek system, where multiple components of a large CRD system have been identified, including the Waterpump Creek-Pb- Zn resource, the Illinois Creek Au-Ag resource, Silver Sage, Warm Springs, and other prospects. While the intrusive center responsible for mineralization at Illinois Creek has not yet been located, the geological, structural, geophysical and geochemical evidence strongly supports its presence at depth. 2026 will see continued exploration for CRD mineralization in the Illinois Creek system to connect the dots along this major 8-km long mineralization corridor. The second hub is centered on the Round Top Ag-Cu-Mo porphyry, located approximately 20 km from the Illinois Creek system. In contrast to Illinois Creek, the Round Top system exposes a well-defined mineralized intrusive porphyry center surrounded by extensive carbonate host rocks that exhibit strong, widespread geochemical leakage to surface, including highly anomalous silver, lead, and zinc values over multi-kilometer strike lengths. Within the Round Top hub, the TG and TG North ("TGN") CRD prospects represent high-priority targets and will be a primary focus for one of the Company's 2026 field exploration teams. Soil geochemistry outlines a strongly anomalous Ag-Pb-Zn trend extending over more than 5 km, with numerous samples exceeding 1,000 ppm lead, indicative of a robust and fertile mineralizing system. Reconnaissance mapping has identified multiple carbonate horizons interlayered with schist cap rocks, forming favorable stratigraphic and structural traps analogous to those hosting high-grade mineralization at Waterpump Creek. The Company believes the TG/TGN area has strong potential to host Waterpump Creek-style CRD mineralization, developed peripheral to the Round Top intrusive center. Planned 2026 work will include detailed geological mapping, targeted soil and sub-surface sampling, trenching, and refinement of drill targets to test for high-grade CRD mineralization beneath the soil geochemical anomalies.
