Nov 8 2013
Maritime Resources Corp. ('Maritime' or the 'Company') reports that it has received the results of testwork performed on samples of core from its Orion gold deposit located near Springdale, Newfoundland. A recovery of 96% of the contained gold was achieved using a coarse grind and conventional bulk sulphide flotation process.
The material displayed favourable characteristics and floated very quickly with only a coarse grind necessary to liberate the gold bearing pyrite.
Eric Norton, President and CEO of Maritime, comments: "We are very pleased with the results of the Orion pre-concentration testwork. Being able to achieve a 96% recovery of gold, while reducing the overall tonnes of material to be transported or requiring further treatment to only 5% of the original mass, opens up a number of options for the potential development of the Orion deposit. The Company could produce a concentrate on site that would be suitable for sale to a smelter, toll treat the concentrate through a local mill, or build a small processing plant on site to produce Dore metal ourselves. The coarse grind and fast flotation kinetics would indicate that the sizing of equipment for an on-site plant would be very small."
As reported in the NI 43-101 compliant Technical Report and Resource Estimate dated July 3, 2013, the Orion gold deposit contains 1,096,500 tonnes of mineralization grading 4.47 g/t gold in the Measured and Indicated categories and 1,288,000 tonnes grading 5.44 g/t gold in the Inferred category, both quoted using a 3 g/t cut-off grade. This deposit is separate from the Company's higher grade Hammerdown deposit that was mined from 2000 to 2004 producing 291,400 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 15.8 g/t gold and processed at the nearby Nugget Pond mill, with an average gold recovery of 97.1%. Maritime initiated the testwork on the Orion deposit to examine the possibility of upgrading the lower grade material at the original Hammerdown mine site in order to avoid further operating costs that would be incurred by trucking as-mined material to Nugget Pond for processing.
Summary of Test Results:
Maritime submitted two composite samples of drill core of approximately 25 kg each to Thibault & Associates Inc. of Fredericton, NB from representative portions of the deposit for bench scale testwork using gravity and flotation pre-concentration methods. This is the first metallurgical work completed on material from Orion and was designed to examine the viability of upgrading, but not optimisation. One sample averaged 2.33 g/t gold (Sample A) and the other averaged 5.81 g/t gold (Sample B). Sample A was selected to represent the material that is marginally below the cut-off grade used in the Resource Estimate, and Sample B was selected to represent the expected overall grade to be mined at Orion.
The core samples for the flotation testwork were ground to 82.0% to 99.7% passing 74 microns followed by open circuit batch rougher flotation tests with a conventional flotation reagent scheme and reagent dosage. A rougher stage gold recovery of 96.1% with a concentrate grade of 45.2 g/t gold was achieved for Sample A, and a recovery of 95.9% with a concentrate grade of 66.1 g/t gold was achieved for Sample B. The flotation kinetics for all tests indicated that the gold floated quite quickly for both samples, with over 90% recovery within the first three minutes and the fastest rates being observed with a coarser grind. No attempt was made to optimize the grind or flotation reagents in this stage of metallurgical testwork but will be included in future test programs.
The assessment of gravity separation was based on an industry standard mineral release test, using a Mozley Mineral Separator. The gravity separation tests were conducted to assess the potential for a gold-rich pyrite concentrate. The release tests for solids in the range of 20 to 1,000 micron defined the recovery of gold at 40% to achieve a concentrate grading 32 g/t of gold for Sample A, and 60% to achieve a concentrate grade of 60 g/t of gold for Sample B.
J. Dean Thibault, P.Eng., of Thibault & Associates Inc. is a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101 and has reviewed and approved the technical disclosure of the metallurgical tests as contained in this release.
Source: http://www.maritimeresourcescorp.com