Goldcorp drills Ardeen

Goldcorp (G-T) has begun a 2,500-metre drill program on Pele Mountain Resources‘ (GEM-V) Ardeen gold project in northwestern Ont.

The campaign is designed to test for both disseminated and narrow-vein gold deposits. The first 500-metre hole has been collared to test a gossanous area about 50 metres from the boundary of the neighbouring Moss Lake property. Pele says the area has never been drill-tested for extensions of the Moss Lake deposit.

The balance of the program will target several other zones for gold mineralization, including at least one hole aimed beneath the Ardeen gold mine’s old workings.

The drilling is part of Goldcorp’s plan to spend $400,000 on exploration by the end of 2004. The company also plans to re-sample old drill core stored at the provincial government’s core library, west of Thunder Bay. Goldcorp can earn a half-interest in the property by spending $3 million before 2008; it can boost its stake to 60% for another $1.5 million before 2009.Recent grab and channel sampling by Goldcorp yielded up to 34 grams gold and 100 grams silver per tonne. Highlights from previous drilling include a 1-metre section running an uncut 149.5 grams gold; 0.6 metre of 598.5 grams; and 0.75 metre of 116.3 grams.

Ardeen was northern Ontario’s first gold mine; it produced 30,000 oz. gold and 175,000 oz. silver in the early 1930s.

Meanwhile, Moss Lake Gold Mines (MOK-V) has begun a 9-hole 1,500-metre drill program on the contiguous Moss Lake and Fountain Lake properties. The drilling will mostly follow up on results from drilling on the Fountain Lake area in 2003, which include a 1.9-metre intersection running 6.9 grams gold, 1 metre averaging 3.5 grams gold, 1.6 metres of 3.1 grams gold, and 0.5 metre of 7.2 grams gold per tonne.

One hole will also test for a western extension of the Moss Lake deposit suggested by the compilation of existing data. Drilling is expected to wrap up in late November; results will follow about a month later.

Moss Lake is home to an historical resource totalling 60 million tonnes grading 1.1 grams gold. The resource stretches to a depth of 250 metres, beyond which it remains open.

The estimate is based on 74,000 metres worth of drilling in 269 surface diamond drill holes plus more than 1,000 metres of underground development and 32 underground holes. It also employs a cutoff grade of 0.51 gram gold per tonne. The figure does not comply with National Instrument 43-101 standards.

Meanwhile, Goldcorp has completed a sampling program at Pele’s Festival diamond project near Wawa, Ont. In all, 2 tonnes of rock samples were collected from ten separate (mostly untested) occurrences; the material has been shipped for diamond extraction by caustic digestion. Results are expected by year-end. Goldcorp can earn a 50% stake in Festival by spending $2 million by the end of 2006, and an additional 10% by spending another $1 million before 2008; Goldcorp has committed to spend $400,000 by the end of 2004.

DeBeers, Pele’s former partner at Festival, confirmed that Festival’s diamonds were derived from a peridotitic mantle within the diamond stability field at depths of at least 250 km, and that they are hosted in volcanic rocks that were deposited on the surface 2.7 billion years ago. The deposits sampled and modelled by De Beers suggest a macro-diamond grade of 10 carats per 100 tonnes or less at a cutoff of 1.5 mm.Highlights from Festival include the recovery of a 0.72-carat white diamond form the Cristal occurrence in March 2003; a drill intersection of up to 100 meters of a diamond-bearing volcanic unit at Cristal occurrence at depth; and the recovery of a 0.9-carat from a bulk sample of the Genesis occurrence in March of this year.