Westhaven continues to extend FMN zone at Shovelnose, intersecting highest silver intercept to date

Westhaven Gold (TSXV: WHN) continues to obtain high-grade results from ongoing drilling at its 100% owned Shovelnose gold project, with elevated gold and silver encountered in different areas of mineralization at the FMN zone. Shovelnose is located within the Spences Bridge gold belt (SBGB), which borders the Coquihalla Highway 30 km south of Merritt, B.C.

Westhaven’s current drilling campaign is designed to follow up on higher-grade intersections from last year’s program (hole SN21-161: 9.15 grams gold per tonne over 16 metres) and broader intervals of near-surface mineralization (hole SN21-188: 0.76 gram gold over 57.8 metres). Drilling is focused on the FMN zone, where these high-grade intersections occurred.

The latest results further extended this high-grade zone towards the South zone, located about 2 km to the southeast. Discovered in 2017, the South zone is a significant gold-bearing vein system that makes up the initial mineral resource for the Shovelnose project and one of many known mineralized zones on the Shovelnose property.

As outlined in the mineral resource estimate from January 2022, the South zone contains a pit constrained resource of 10.6 million indicated tonnes grading 2.32 grams gold and 11.43 grams silver, plus 9.2 million inferred tonnes grading 0.89 gram gold and 3.47 grams silver.

The new drilled results are highlighted by SN22-213 (38.2 metres of 3.36 grams gold and 11.48 grams silver) and SN22-229 (15 metres of 5.69 grams gold and 343.57 grams silver). These intercepts are located 40 and 80 metres respectively along strike from SN22-212 (23 metres of 37.24 grams gold and 209.52 grams silver), which, as previously reported in April 2022, was the highest ever gold-silver intercept ever drilled on the Shovelnose property.

According to Westhaven’s president and CEO Gareth Thomas: “Hole SN22-229 is the highest silver intercept (5,140 gram-metres silver) drilled to date on the Shovelnose property. There are several hundred metres of largely untested strike length at the FMN zone, both towards the South zone and towards the Franz zone. In addition to hosting bonanza grades, the FMN zone benefits from minimal overburden with mineralization starting at bedrock surface.”

Commenting on the shallower drilling that continues to encounter significant gold over broader widths at FMN, as highlighted in hole SN22-213, Peter Fischl, exploration manager, said “these broad near surface intercepts add to the open-pit potential at FMN.

“Deeper drilling has also commenced in an area of mineralization containing significant silver previously intersected in 2020 drilling with holes SN20-139 (4.58 grams gold, 267.35 grams silver over 5.5 metres) and SN20-145 (11.25 grams gold, 430 grams silver over 1.2 metres). This zone, centred at 1,200-metre elevation, is being targeted to better define this silver-rich mineralization, starting with hole SN22-229.”

Fischl went on to add that: “With the recent completion of a DC resistivity survey at FMN, it is anticipated that drilling will resume stepping out from the central part of FMN northwestward into the gap between FMN and Franz in the coming weeks.”