Balmoral Resources (TSX: BAR; US-OTC: BALMF) has more than doubled the strike length and depth of the high-grade Horizon 3 zone at its Grasset nickel-copper-platinum group metals (PGM) project in Quebec. Grasset is about 200 km north of Rouyn-Noranda, at the southern end of the 16 km long northwest-trending Grasset ultramafic intrusion complex, at the northern contact with the Sunday Lake deformation zone. The Detour Lake gold mine in Ontario is 80 km west.
Results from the company’s latest 12 drill holes — plus several others for which assays are pending — suggest that the sulphide-rich zone extends for at least 350 metres of strike and to a vertical depth of more than 300 metres. The zone has been confirmed by drilling along 125 metres of strike and to a 250-metre vertical depth.
Balmoral president and CEO Darin Wagner said in a release that the results show Horizon 3’s “rapid expansion” along strike and to depth, which boosted confidence for what he calls “the potential of both the Horizon 3 discovery and the Grasset Ultramafic Complex as a whole.”
He added that drilling intersected net-textured-style sulphide mineralization along the projection of Horizon 3, northwest and beneath the reported holes.
Highlights from the recent drilling include 45 metres grading 1.53% nickel, 0.16% copper, 0.37 gram platinum per tonne and 0.86 gram palladium from a 194-metre depth in hole 44. Hole 47 — Grasset’s deepest hole to date — shows 49.3 metres of 1.3% nickel, 0.1% copper, 0.31 gram platinum and 0.76 gram palladium, starting at 296 metres deep.
Both holes contain shorter intervals of higher-grade mineralization. True widths have not been determined.
Thirteen more holes have been completed, and drilling using two rigs is expanding the horizon to the northwest and at depth.
Results are pending for several more holes that have intersected massive sulphide mineralization at depth and northwest.
The company is in the early stages of delineating Horizon 3, which was discovered in May, and is disrupted by faulting. It will soon test the area southeast of an east- to west-trending porphyry fault that offsets the zone at its southeast end, based on the results of a recently completed airborne survey.
There’s also another corridor of faulting and mafic dykes that disrupts Horizon 3 in a section that Balmoral is referring to as the 39-43 Fault Corridor (it’s in the area of holes 39-43). Drilling has confirmed that the zone continues across the corridor — with a minor horizontal offset — but more closely spaced drilling is needed to determine how much area is affected.
The recent drilling also intersected high-grade “footwall-style” nickel-copper-PGM-gold veining, as well as several high-grade gold intervals from altered volcanic and intrusive rocks in the hangingwall to Horizon 3.
Footwall-style veining — characterized by strong copper and precious metal grades — was found in hole 37 (0.6 metre of 2.6% nickel, 2.9% copper, 1.92 grams platinum per tonne, 12 grams palladium and 5.13 grams gold), and hole 44.
Hangingwall intercepts, in hole 44, 47 and 48, returned up to 1.5 metres of 6.45 grams gold.
Balmoral has discovered three vertically oriented, sub-parallel mineralized horizons at Grasset, trending northwest. The high-grade Horizon 3 is 100 metres southeast of the other zones.
Mineralization occurs in heavy disseminated to massive sulphides and multiple-stacking horizons within the ultramafic complex.
Balmoral shares recently traded at $1.45 in a 52-week range of 51¢ to $1.98. The company has 102.8 million shares outstanding.
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