Atlantic Report : Seabright continues development

Seabright Resources of Halifax is well advanced with underground development on two of its Nova Scotia gold properties.

At Forest Hills in Guysborough Cty., a vertical shaft has been sunk to 750 ft to intersect potential ore zones indicated by previous drilling programs. A 4,400-ton bulk sample will be processed this month at Seabright’s mill at Gays River, Halifax Cty. The mill was purchased from Esso Resources Canada, which operated a lead-zinc mine at Gays River in the 1970s under the name Canada Wide Mines.

Underground exploration at Seabright’s Beaver Dam property in Halifax Cty. includes a decline which has been driven 430 ft. It now is at a vertical depth of 76 ft and is progressing 20 ft a day.

In other work at Beaver Dam, Seabright has drilled an additional 20 holes since its August announcement of ore reserve figures of 1,650,000 tons grading 0.35 oz gold per ton. The strike length of the ore zone now is 2,320 ft and remains open to the east and west at depth. Two holes have visible gold over widths of 58 ft.

In addition to drilling at Beaver Dam, Seabright is carrying on major exploration programs in the immediate area of the ore zone and on a regional basis, including geophysics, reverse circulation drilling, soil sampling, boulder prospecting and geological mapping. Seabright expects to complete its next Beaver Dam ore reserve calculations before the end of the year.

Coxheath Gold Holdings of Bedford, N.S., is drilling on its Tangier gold property near Sheet Harbour, Halifax Cty. Six holes have been completed with visible gold in four of them. The company is awaiting assay results from the holes.

It will spend $1 million on the property by the end of February, 1987. Fifteen to 20 more holes will be drilled to define ore reserves and Coxheath may put in a decline and do underground drilling.

The company is also working on its Mile Lake gold property in Guysborough Cty. and will complete 5,000 ft of drilling there by the end of the year.

An extension of Seabright’s gold zone has been traced on to Coxheath claims near Beaver Dam, Halifax Cty.; the claims now are under option to Seabright. Seabright has drilled 11 holes on the Coxheath claims; one 29.1-ft section tested at 0.49 oz gold per ton. Seabright has spent $331,650 on the Coxheath claims to date.

Century-old milling methods and equipment are being used to process gold in the Renfrew gold district, Hants Cty., N.S. Edgar Horne and Byron (Nugget) Taylor have a diesel-powered 5-stamp mill crushing ore from veins near the Free Claim Brook. Mr Horne, whose great-uncle was the legendary Edmund R. Horne, discoverer of the Noranda deposit in Quebec, has been working at the location since 1937 when his uncle had a shaft and stamp mill there. During its heyday, 51,000 oz of gold were recorded from the Renfrew gold district.

“We’re trying to prove gold mining is still profitable using the old methods,” says Mr Horne. “We’re milling from three veins and the ore is reasonably rich, with a lot of visible gold.”

Acadian Mineral Ventures of Truro, N.S., has an option on 2 1/2 sq mi les of claims in the area.

Inco plans to go undergroaund at the Cochrane Hill gold property in Guysborough Cty. which it has optioned from Northumberland Mines of Toronto. Inco, which manages an exploration program in Nova Scotia for Scominex, a consortium of Husky, Nova Scotia Resources and Inco, completed a 16-hole drill program at Cochrane Hill in 1985 and hopes to verify drill-indicated grades and widths to the mineralization.

Water will be pumped out of an existing shaft so a bulk sampling of 5,000 tons can be taken to get a more accurate picture of the ore grade. Northumberland produced about 500 oz of gold in 1982 from a test pit on the property.

The Potter Mine Inc., of Littleton, Colo., has performed preliminary exploration work on a gold property at Clementsvale, Digby Cty., N.S. Till geochemistry and magnetometer surveys have been done over a magnetic iron formation hosted by sedimentary rocks of the Torbrook formation. Company officials are optimistic about the property’s potential and plan a drill program if funding can be secured.

The Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy District 1 meeting will be held in Halifax Nov 21-22. The theme of the meeting is Mineral Investment in A tlantic Canada. Field trips will be held before the meeting to Seabright’s Beaver Dam gold property and to salt operations in Cumberland Cty.