Probe drills high-grade gold at Cadillac Break East

Deeper drilling in a previous drill hole intersected 8 grams gold per tonne over 9 metres at the Cadillac Break East property near Val-d’Or, Que., Probe Metals (TSXV: PRB; US-OTC: PROBF) says.

Probe is earning up to a 70% stake in the property under a November 2016 option agreement with O3 Mining (TSXV: OIII), part of the Osisko Group of companies.

Drill hole CBE-40 was deepened to followup on lower grade assay results from the bottom of the hole and returned 9 metres grading 8 grams gold per tonne starting from 295 metres downhole, including 1 metre grading 45.9 grams gold per tonne in a new zone.

Probe said the zone “appears to be along the same trend” that hosts earlier reported mineralization grading 4.2 grams gold over 4 metres in hole CBE-53 about 3.8 km away.

In addition to drill hole CBE-40, Probe released results from four other holes, highlights of which include 1 metre of 9.2 grams gold in CBE-64 starting from 341 metres downhole and 13.8 grams gold over 1 metre starting from 194 metres in drill hole CBE-73.

The company said the results are associated with new geophysical targets that have been delineated by induced polarization surveys on the property. It also noted that it is undertaking a new 3D IP survey to cover part of the trend between drill hole CBE-40 and CBE-53.

Under its option agreement with O3 Mining, Probe can earn an initial 60% stake by spending $5 million on exploration over four years. It can then earn another 10% by spending a further $2 million on exploration and completing a prefeasibility study. When it completes its 70% earn-in, Probe must then issue 200,000 of its common shares to O3 Mining. So far, Probe has spent $4.3 million on the property.

The property is underlain by mafic to felsic volcanic rocks and related sills of the Malartic Group, underlying the north half of the property, in contact with sedimentary rocks of the Pontiac Group to the south, says Probe, which is the operator of the exploration programs. The contact between the two geologic terrains, it adds, is the Cadillac Break Deformation Zone, a major geologic fault zone that controls the location of many gold deposits spanning 300 km in Quebec and Ontario.

The property also contains the Sleepy gold deposit, which has an inferred resource of 1.86 million inferred tonnes grading 5.1 grams gold for 307,350 ounces.

At press time in Toronto, Probe was trading at $1.47 per share within a 52-week range of 55¢ and $1.53. The junior explorer has about 126 million common shares outstanding for a $185-million market capitalization.