Vancouver – London-based Triple Plate Junction (TPJ-L) has reported initial encouraging results in its first diamond drill hole at the Crater Mountain joint venture in Papua New Guinea, between New Guinea Gold (NGG-V) and Celtic Minerals (CME-V).
The property covers 713 sq. km of exploration licences situated in the New Guinea tectonic belt. The active string of recent strata-volcanoes plays host to world-class gold-copper deposits including Ok Tedi and Porgera.
Triple Plate’s drilling focused on the Nevera prospect which is one of five target areas along the Crater Mountain structural corridor.
Hole-8 cut a 158-metre interval that averaged 1.4 grams gold per tonne starting from 220 metres down the hole. The hole intersected hydrothermal brecciation, disseminated, fracture-filled and vein sulphides over its entire 450 metre length.The gold grades appear to be increasing with depth with up to 20 metres grading 2.33 grams gold from a downhole depth of 358 metres.
Previous drilling by BHP in the area returned 115 metres grading 1.83 grams gold in hole 2 and hole 5 with 24 metres of 6.55 grams gold per tonne. Both holes ended in gold mineralization.
New Guinea Gold had also turned up encouraging grades in trenching some 500 metres west of hole 2 in 2003. The trenches returned 48 metres that graded 9.97 grams gold in one and 20 metres of 1.23 grams in another.
Four high-priority targets in the Nevera prospect area have been outlined based on a compilation of existing data that included a re-interpretation of airborne and ground magnetics, geochemistry and geologic information.
Crews continue to drill in an effort to get a feel for the structural-lithologic controls and geometry of the mineralization deposit.
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