Athabasca find looks interesting

A gold discovery has been made by Athabaska Gold Resources (VSE) on its Nicholas Lake property 60 miles north of Yellowknife, N.W.T. The property is geologically similar to the old Discovery mine six miles to the southwest which produced one million ounces of gold from the same amount of ore.

Several good intersections were reported by Athabasca Gold in a recent drill program. These results included: 7.0 ft of 1.6 oz gold in hole 88-10; 10.4 ft of 1.2 oz in 88-11; 10.5 ft averaging 0.32 oz in 88-19 and 38.9 ft grading 0.39 oz lower in that hole. Out of nine holes recently reported, the best 13 intersections averaged 0.7 oz over an average true width of 5.7 ft. President James Kermeen noted that most of the intersections occurred i n three steeply-dipping quartz-sulphide veins, lying within or near the highly altered border phase of a well mineralized light colored diorite plug. He predicted the entire contact area of the plug could be a potential host for gold mineralization.

“To date only one quarter of the periphery of the plug has been tested to a limited depth,” he said, adding: “There is marked improvement in the grade and thickness of mineralization at depth.”

Athabaska can earn a 60% interest in the property from Chevron through additional expenditures of $350,000. Kermeen said his company has spent about $400,000 so far. Chevron, which has the option of earning back in to 55%, conducted a small drilling program last April at Athabaska’s expense which returned some encouraging results. “It looked pretty interesting so we went back in and completed another 12 holes,” he said.

The zone outcrops on surface but some of the better numbers being returned are from 250-500 ft, Kermeen pointed out. “It’s very interesting geologically because the entire contact area of this intrusive plug is highly sheared, altered, silicified and mineralized, chiefly with arsenopyrite. The entire plug gives a very strong response with induced polarization which suggests it’s a juicy plug,” he added.

Arsenopyrite is present within all the veins but as far as they can tell it’s not directly associated with the gold. The most consistent association is with sphalerite, he said. Athabasca recently completed a financing of $250,000 and he said they were talking to a number of people about private placements. Further drilling is planned.