Vista pulls hot intersection while drilling Bootleg bet

Vista Mines’ Bootleg property near Creighton, Sask., continues to produce some pleasant surprises at it comes within weeks of an internal feasibility stage.

With a 20,000-ton bulk sample program in progress and a third gold bar in the can, the Regina-based company has been conducting some underground drilling at the 400-ft level of a recently installed decline.

The drill program is designed to establish cut off points on an orebody which consists of two major deposits — the Rio and Henning- Maloney.

They host 221,479 tons of grade 0.138 oz gold per ton and 14,960 tons of grade 0.450 oz respectively.

While drilling from a sill on the 400 level Vista has encountered a 20-ft intersection which could have important tonnage and grade implications for a possible mining operation, the company said. It assayed at 0.5 oz gold.

“We seemed to have stumbled on something that looks fairly hot,” said Nathan Hollick, Vista’s chief operations officer. However, Vista has already known that a new structure runs perpendicular to the WC and AJ zones which are expected to increase known reserves.

Called the Phantom Lake Granite, it has already been encountered while the company was sinking the ramp on the 200-ft and 320-ft levels. “It’s just something that we keep bumping into,” Hollick told The Northern Miner.

While drilling continues on a number of Bootleg zones, the company achieved a 95.99% purity level on a recently poured 288-oz gold bar. “We want to find out as much as we can about the orebody before going into production,” said Hollick who predicted that the bulk sample program will be delayed 1 1/2 week s by some minor problems with the ball mill operation.

According to Hollick some ball mill liners wore out prematurely and the company had to wait until new parts were installed.