The cake: Drilling at the Marlhill property in Hoyle Twp., just east of Timmins, Ont., has confirmed that four mineralized structures continue down-plunge from where they are exposed in old mine workings.
The icing: 7,293 grams per tonne (212.7 oz. per ton) over 0.3 metre.
It happens every so often in the Porcupine gold camp.
Since late November, Pentland Firth Ventures (PFO-T) has been drilling from surface and from recently dewatered underground workings at the 150-metre level of the Marlhill mine. During that time, the three machines on the project drilled 13 holes in a 400-by-300 metre block starting about 210 metres below surface.
The four structures — christened Shoots A, B, C and D — produced gold from 1989 to 1991. Plunging steeply to the southeast, they are believed to be near the crests of folds on the mine’s M-1 vein — one of four veins mined during production and one of nine veins now known to exist on the property.
The 200-oz. intersection was drilled on a splay of Shoot A, and the same hole intersected a 1.8-metre length grading 9.6 grams gold. Also on Shoot A, another drill hole cut a 13.8-metre intersection with an average gold grade of 6.5 grams, including intervals of 2.2 metres grading 14.7 grams and 2.4 metres grading 12 grams.
A third hole intersected 6 metres grading 6.2 grams gold in Shoot B; another cut 3.3 metres of 6.9-gram material in Shoot C; and another cut 2.3 metres grading an average 11 grams in Shoot D. All three mineralized intersections contained high-grade intervals.
As pleasant as high-grade intersections are, locating the plunge extensions of the shoots will mean more to Marlhill’s potential in the long run. Five of the 13 holes intersected wider and higher-grade zones than had been encountered when Marlhill was mined.
Next door at the Hoyle Pond mine, Kinross Gold (K-T), Pentland Firth’s big brother, concentrated its 1996 exploration efforts on extending the mine’s 1060 zone down-plunge, proving up additional flat veins and testing structural targets between the 1060 zone and the Owl Creek open pit.
Nine holes, including three drilled from wedge offsets in existing holes, encountered 1060-zone mineralization at depths of between 355 and 745 metres.
The gold grades, widths and strike lengths of the zone appear to hold up at depth.
Kinross has found several flat-lying veins in the main mine area, which appear to occur about 40 to 60 vertical metres apart. Ongoing drilling is testing their horizontal size and is seeking additional veins at depth. The mine’s flat veins, with average grades of around 20 grams gold per tonne, have been a significant source of ore at Hoyle since they were discovered in 1995.
Along the southern limb of the Hoyle fold, Kinross has drilled 73 holes to test several mineralized zones between 1060, which occupies the nose of the fold, and the Owl Creek open pit, which produced 255,000 oz. between 1981 and 1989. Kinross is currently calculating a resource figure for the mineralization.
West of Owl Creek, Kinross is managing a drill program on the Black Hawk Mining (BHK-T) Vogel property. Kinross is earning a 32.5% interest and Thunderwood Resources (THS-T) 17.5% from Black Hawk. Assay results are not yet available, though 16 holes have been completed. The current resource figure at Vogel is 700,000 tonnes grading 11.3 grams gold, with all the resource existing above the 200-metre level. Kinross’s drilling has tested as deep as 550 metres.
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