Nov 21 2014
Pershing Gold Corporation is pleased to announce that the Winnemucca District Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management has approved an expanded drilling program in the North Target Area at Pershing Gold's Relief Canyon Mine in Pershing County, Nevada.
As shown on Figure 1, the North Target Area is located north of the North Pit in a zone where the Company has already drilled numerous holes this year with high-grade gold intercepts.
The permit authorizes Pershing Gold to construct 48 new drill sites and associated access roads in the North Target Area. Multiple holes can be drilled from each site, which gives the Company optimal flexibility to drill holes at different angles and in different directions from a single drill site to define the gold mineralization in this part of the Relief Canyon deposit while at the same time minimizing surface disturbance.
"Given our recent success drilling high-grade gold intercepts in the North Target Area, additional drilling in this zone is an important and exciting component of our deposit development strategy at Relief Canyon," stated Stephen D. Alfers, Pershing Gold's Chairman and CEO. "This permit will allow us to systematically drill this area where there is significant potential to increase the gold resource."
Key objectives of the North Target Area drilling program include the following:
- Extend mineralization to the west where the deposit remains open and largely untested;
- Drill core holes in several gold-bearing structural zones that are only partially tested and delineated with historic reverse circulation holes;
- Demonstrate continuity of the high-grade ore shells, which management expects to increase the number of high-grade ounces and improve project economics; and
- Confirm the grade and extent of gold mineralization by drilling core holes in areas defined mainly by historic reverse circulation holes, which has the potential to increase the overall resource as well as to upgrade ounces classified as inferred in the current resource to the measured and indicated resource classification.
"Our aggressive drilling campaign at Relief Canyon will continue as we steadily upgrade and expand the deposit," commented Alfers. "We are very pleased to be in a position to step-up our efforts to define the deposit through additional drilling and appreciate BLM's review of our proposal for the drilling program in the North Target Area." In addition to the North Target Area drilling program, drilling is underway to test promising targets in the southwest part of the deposit. The Company is planning to drill into 2015 and has adequate funds for the planned drilling program, which is anticipated to cost approximately $1.1 million.
Pershing Gold is planning to incorporate the results from drilling completed since 2013, including the holes drilled in the North Target Area, into an updated third-party resource estimate, scheduled for completion in 2015. Once the new resource estimate is published, the Company plans to complete an independent Preliminary Economic Assessment on the Relief Canyon Project.
Scientific and Technical Data
All scientific and technical information related to drill and surface samples for the Relief Canyon project has been reviewed and approved by Larry L. Hillesland, Certified Professional Geologist, who is a Qualified Person under the definitions established by Canadian National Instrument 43-101. Drill core at Relief Canyon is boxed and sealed at the drill rig and moved to the Relief Canyon logging and sample preparation facilities by trained personnel. The core is logged and split down the center using a typical table-fed circular rock saw. One half of the core is sent for assay to Skyline Assayers & Laboratories of Sparks, Nevada, while the other half is returned to the core box and stored at Relief Canyon in a secure, fenced-off, area. Pershing Gold Corporation quality assurance/quality control (QA/QC) procedures include the regular use of blanks, standards, and duplicate samples.
Source: http://www.pershinggold.com/