The main shaft of one of the earliest gold mines in Canada, the Goldenville mine in Nova Scotia, will be the subject of a $1-million underground exploration program starting this week.
Property owner Northumberland Mines of Toronto has awarded the contract to Cape Breton-based Finlay Walker Mining and Tunnelling. Work will include refurbishing the shaft, erecting a temporary headframe and dewatering the former mine workings.
Following completion of this phase, a 5,000-ton underground bulk sampling program is planned to confirm the positive results from an ongoing $2-million drilling program from surface, the company reports.
On the basis of exploration done since 1986, mph Consulting reports, “mineralization intersections in many of the holes have visible gold and these new zones of potential reserves have been correlated with the down-dip extension of the mined-out ore zones.”
“Detailed logging of the drill core has indicated there is continuity between widely-spaced cross-sections where mineralization has been intersected. The potential to develop mineral inventories below the old mine workings is very promising.”
The Goldenville mine was the most productive in the province. Up to its wartime closure in 1942, more than 200,000 oz of the yellow metal were recovered.
Northumberland is also engaged in a $1.6-million underground exploration program at its Cochrane Hill property (N.M., Dec. 28/88). And the company is also planning to begin mining its Murray Brook deposit later this year.
The company’s shares traded this week on the Toronto Stock Exchange at about 76 cents .
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