Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. (TSX:SBB) has announced the results of the first of a two phase drilling program that began last fall on its 50% owned Newman-Madsen property in the prolific Red Lake gold district of Ontario, Canada.
Newman-Madsen is one of the Company's early stage exploration projects in Ontario and is held in a 50/50 joint venture with Premier Gold Mines with Sabina as the operator. Initial Newman-Madsen work has been organized into a two phase $1.09 million drilling program with 50% of the cost borne each by Sabina and Premier.
Phase 1 consisted of four holes totalling 3,183 metres of drilling to test the north eastern extension of the Madsen Mine stratigraphy at levels significantly deeper than previously explored.
Drilling was successful in intersecting the targeted stratigraphy and delineating a highly prospective area of hydrothermal alteration where significant gold values including a high-grade intercept of 43.51g/t over 0.65 meters were encountered.
The intercept is interpreted to demonstrate the potential for the Newman-Madsen property to host significant mineralization consistent with the recognized horizons hosting the Madsen Mine (>2.4 million ounces) located immediately to the Southwest.
Further anomalous and significant gold assays were also returned from a series of quartz-feldspar porphyry intrusives that are a part of ongoing interpretations and follow up exploration. Phase I mapping and core re-logging has also been completed increasing the geologic confidence within the property while further defining exploration targets.
"We continue to adapt our exploration "tool box" to be able to apply it to one of the world's greatest mining camps," said Tony Walsh, President & CEO. "Our Phase 1 drilling has encouraged us to continue drilling on this property and we look forward to testing the high priority targets identified during the Phase 1 campaign."
Phase II exploration of the Neman-Madsen property has commenced with diamond drill testing of a diverse group of high priority targets generated through the incorporation of newly derived and historic data that has been coupled with developing geologic interpretations throughout phase I exploration. A series ten holes, totalling approximately 3000 meters has been implemented to test this series of targets. The targeting focuses dominantly on interpreted folded mafic and ultramafic rock sequences of the Balmer Assemblage where coincident with favourable D2 structures, geochemical signatures, and resistivity anomalies. These targets are elected to present opportunities to intersect mineralization reflecting in similarity to the Red Lake Mine High-Grade Zone style.
Newman-Madsen Geology
The rock units underlying Newman-Madsen property are considered to be very prospective in that all of the key features for high-grade mineralization in the Red Lake belt can be found on the property. These units are locally cut by northwest-trending structures, making them especially attractive where coupled with elevated gold and arsenic geochemical signatures.
The property is underlain by Archean rocks of the Red Lake greenstone belts consisting of the Mesoarchean Balmer assemblage in the northern portion of the property and the Neoarchean Confederation assemblage to the south. The assemblages are separated by a regional unconformity which has been identified in close proximity to numerous high grade gold deposits in the Red Lake area, including the Madsen, Campbell and Red Lake mines. This regional unconformity crosses the south-southeastern sector of Newman-Madsen property over approximately 1.6 km where it remains largely untested at depth. The Madsen Mine situated along trend to the Southwest historically produced >2.4 million ounces from an underground mining operation.
Source: Sabina Gold & Silver Corp.