Midway shaping up zone near Tonopah (May 01, 2006)

A 43-hole drill program by Midway Gold (MDW-V, MDWGF-O) at its Midway property in Nye Cty., Nev., has wrapped up and results show an expansion of at least one of the property’s mineralized zones.

Better than half the new holes were drilled on the Dauntless zone, one of eight known prospects on the property. There, five new drill sections extended the zone by 200 metres along strike, and established that the zone consists of two or three sub-parallel veins with a total true width of 7 to 20 metres. The zone strikes southeast and dips southwest.

Typical grades are 0.5 to 4 grams per tonne across the whole width, but some holes cut higher-grade intersections in this drill program. The most recent high-grade hole ran 6.2 grams gold per tonne over 34.7 metres core length (translating to about 11 metres true width). Earlier intersections on Dauntless graded 4.6 grams per tonne over 10.7 metres (6.1 metres true width) and 12.8 grams per tonne over 4.6 metres (1.7 metres true width).

In the Enterprise zone, four holes encountered multiple mineralized zones generally 1.5 to 6 metres in true width. The best grade came out of a 3.1-metre interval that graded 5.1 grams per tonne, with other intersections ranging from 0.6 to 3.4 grams per tonne.

The Cross zone, tested by five holes, returned one intersection of 6.1 metres grading 6.7 grams gold per tonne and another of 3 metres grading 6 grams. Other holes showed lower grades over wider true widths, up to 12.8 metres. Four other zones, Hornet, Nautilus, 121 South and 63-77, showed some gold intersections.

The project, discovered by Houston Oil & Minerals in the 1970s, has been worked by a number of companies since, including Rio Tinto (RTP-N, RIO-L), Kennecott Copper and Coeur d’Alene Mines (CDM-T, CDE-N). Newmont Mining (NMC-T, NEM-N) dropped an option deal with Midway Gold in 2004 after spending US$3.5 million.

At Midway’s Spring Valley project in Pershing Cty., recent reverse-circulation drilling has found high-grade gold in gravels overlying a volcanic breccia about 300 metres west of known gold prospects on the property. Most sample intervals graded from a fraction of a gram to 2 grams, but two high-grade intervals, both of 1.5 metres, ran 11.3 grams and 139.2 grams gold per tonne. Diamond drilling is planned for April.