Vancouver — The latest results have prompted
President Anthony Walsh says the Suluk zone in particular is showing significant potential as crews expand the gold mineralization along strike and to depth, and discover more mineralized lenses parallel to those previously identified.
Earlier drilling in the Suluk area cut several parallel, steeply dipping zones of mineralization over a strike length of 250 metres. Twelve recent holes yielded the following highlights:
— 31.6 grams gold per tonne over 6.2 metres at a down-hole depth of 26.5 metres in hole 214;
— 4.2 grams gold over 10.9 metres at 121.3 metres down-hole in hole 218.
The latest bout of drilling has extended the mineralization to beyond 400 metres in length down to depths exceeding 250 metres below surface.
Mineralization lies along interbanded basalt and argillite units, with higher-grade cores surrounded by large halos of lower-grade gold mineralization.
Based on the promising results, the company has added 8,200 metres of drilling to its recently completed 12,000-metre program.
In the south, the prospective horizon shifts 100 metres to the east and the Suluk mineralization appears to narrow. Farther east, however, two holes hit a new lens of mineralization. Hole 92B returned 10.6 grams gold over 6.2 metres, with a second zone running 11.5 grams gold over 4.2 metres cut lower down in the hole. Hole 93 yielded 5.2 grams gold over 5.2 metres followed by 6.2 grams gold over 3.4 metres lower down.
Mineralization occurs in altered silicified basalt proximal to an argillite interflow to the south, and stratigraphically east of the main Suluk lenses.
At the Rand Spur target, some 700 metres north of Suluk, hole 216 tested the downdip extension of the mineralization cut in hole 206 (56.7 metres grading 2.6 grams gold) and returned 1.3 grams gold over 52 metres.
About 2.2 km south of Suluk, 10 holes were drilled into the Patch 7 area. The 2,883-metre program cut thick sections of altered interbedded volcanics and argillite, with the following results:
q hole 86A — 3.9 grams gold over 3 metres;
q hole 89 — 35.5 grams gold over 0.9 metre;
q hole 94 — 2.3 metres grading 12.4 grams gold;
q hole 95 — 7 metres grading 3.9 grams gold.
Miramar also completed 4,289 metres of reverse-circulation drilling in seven areas on the Hope Bay belt. The 248 holes identified three drill targets, the most promising of which appears to be Nexus, where an extensive trend of anomalous gold values in altered bedrock has been identifed. Also of interest is the Gas Cache prospect, where drilling stepped out to the north and south of previous work.
A 9,000-metre program aimed at testing the depth potential of the Boston deposit began in mid-March, and initial results are expected in late May.
Says Walsh: “The Boston Deeps program is warranted by the scale of the Boston gold system and its potential persistence to depth, a typical feature of many Archean shear-hosted gold deposits.”
To date, the Boston mineralizing system marks the largest gold resource in the Hope Bay belt, with a measured and indicated resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 15 grams gold per tonne. Previous reconnassiance drilling by BHP, now known as
At last count, the Hope Bay project holds a measured and indicated resource of 3.4 million tonnes grading 15.4 grams gold per tonne, plus an inferred 6.7 million tonnes grading 12.3 grams gold.
In January, an independent scoping study on the Doris area alone concluded that the high-grade Hinge zone can support a stand-alone operation with a capital investment of $26.7 million. A stockpile of 9,000 tonnes of Boston material would expand the Hinge zone resource to 471,600 tonnes averaging 18.5 grams gold.
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