Dejour cuts wide section at Turquetil

Drill results from Dejour Mines’ (TSE) Turquetil property 225 km southwest of Rankin Inlet in the Northwest Territories have shown good gold grades over significant widths.

“It’s a big alteration zone,” says President Ian Thompson. “That’s a good sign; strike length and a broad zone of alteration.”

Equal joint venture partner on the project is Noble Peak Mines (ASE).

The best intersection in this drilling program came in hole 88-02 which intersected 38.22 m grading 4.31 g gold per tonne. That works out to about 125.4 ft grading 0.127 oz gold per ton. The true width would be about 26.75 m or 87.8 ft.

Included in those values is a 5.52-m section grading 9.89 g (18.1 ft grading 0.291 oz) or a true width of 3.86 m (12.7 ft.).

Of significance is the relation of that hole with a hole drilled in 1976 by Essex Minerals, a subsidiary of U.S. Steel when the property was the subject of base metal exploration. That hole was drilled 26 m (85 ft) above hole 88-02 and intersected 13.1 m averaging 6.84 g gold (42.9 ft averaging 0.212 oz).

Two other holes drilled in the late 1970s also cut gold values associated with sulphides over significant widths along a 600-ft strike length.

In order for material to be considered ore grade in this remote area, however, higher gold values may be required than those associated with more accessible areas such as Val d’Or, Que., where the average grade is about 0.20 oz gold per ton.

Hole 88-1 on the Turquetil property was drilled 15 m east of 88-2. It intersected 6.25 m averaging 4.94 g (20.5 ft averaging 0.14 oz) including 3.6 m at 8.2 g (11.8 ft at 0.239 oz).

Hole 88-4 was drilled 25 m west of 88-02 and cut 8.6 m averaging 7.26 g (28.2 ft grading 0.213 oz) including 5.1 m grading 9.11 g (16.7 ft grading 0.268 oz).

Hole 88-03 was drilled a further 325 m west of 88-02 and cut 3.0 m grading 9.97 g (9.84 ft grading 0.293 oz).

Those four holes are the only ones for which assays have been received, but other holes have returned wide intersections of sulphides.

Thompson says 17 holes have been drilled to date on the large 15,000-ha property and “just about all of them have intersected sulphides.” In the first 12 holes, 10 contained “significant sections” of alteration and sulphide mineralization.

Gold mineralization occurs with arsenopyrite and pyrite within strongly sheared and altered volcanic rock, he says. There is no visible gold.

The first 13 holes tested a strike length of 300 m, but stepout drilling has also been conducted to the west. Thompson says hole 14, drilled 210 m west of Hole 3, cut 13.1 m of mineralization in altered volcanics similar to those in Hole 3 while hole 15, drilled 300 m west of 14, cut weaker sulphide mineralization. Holes 16 an 17 are collared midway between 14 and 15.