St Andrew Goldfields Ltd., has announced results from recent drilling conducted at the Blacktop Zone which returned encouraging results east of and along strike from the current mining activities.
Ongoing drilling at the Deep Thunder Zone (located approximately 1km to the east of the Blacktop Zone) continues to expand the zone of gold mineralization and confirmed the presence of higher grade gold mineralization within a broader zone of alteration and lower grade gold mineralization. Both zones are located within the Holloway Mine area, which lies at the eastern end of the Company's land package in the Timmins mining district.
Highlights of Drilling:
East of Blacktop Zone
- Hole 410-058 - 11.62 g/t Au over 14.4 metres (True width 12.5 metres)
- Hole 410-061 - 6.55 g/t Au over 19.7 metres (True width 13.5 metres)
Deep Thunder Zone
- Hole GH10-010W1 - 28.06 g/t Au over 6.2 metres (True width 5.0 metres)
- Hole GH10-010W2 - 4.29 g/t Au over 4.5 metres (True width 3.6 metres)
- Hole GH10-010W2 - 4.07 g/t Au over 4.5 metres (True width 3.6 metres)
- Hole GH10-012W2 - 8.49 g/t Au over 4.5 metres (True width 3.6 metres)
- Hole GH10-012W2 - 33.54 g/t Au over 0.3 metres (True width 0.2 metres)
- Hole GH10-76W4 - 5.19 g/t Au over 7.2 metres (True width 5.8 metres)
East of Blacktop Zone
The Blacktop Zone is located at the Holloway Mine approximately 2 kilometres east of the Holloway main shaft, and is an area where current mining operations are being carried out. Limited underground drilling was conducted to test the eastern extent of the Blacktop Zone and returned significant values in two holes. Drilling was carried out from the 410m level, 225 metres east of the current known extent of the Blacktop Zone and approximately 50 metres north of the ventilation exhaust/backfill drift.
Additional drilling of this zone will be completed from surface, with a potential to add to the resource base of the Holloway Mine. Approximately 1 kilometre of strike remains untested between the Blacktop Zone and the near surface Canamax Zone to the east (nearing the western and northern margins of the newly identified Deep Thunder Zone).
Deep Thunder Zone
Continued drilling at the Deep Thunder Zone has expanded the zone of gold mineralization and confirmed the presence of higher grade gold structures within a broader zone of alteration. Gold mineralization is concentrated within several sub-parallel zones along steeply dipping structures, from true depths of 620 metres to 1,100 metres, over a strike length of 250 metres. The zone of mineralization remains open both to the east and down-dip.
Recent drilling consisted of wedges drilled off of previously drilled holes that intersected mineralized zones; i.e. GH92-76W - 30.08 g/t Au over 3.0 metres; GH10-010 returned 20.04 g/t Au over 2.7 metres; and GH10-012returned 3.86 g/t over 5.9 metres. The recent wedge holes have intersected similar alteration and mineralization to that of the pilot holes and continued to expand the known gold mineralization further to the east. Continued drilling will be designed to systematically step out further to the east to expand the gold mineralization along strike and down dip and to define the overall size and geometry of the higher grade gold mineralization.
Four drill rigs are currently active at the Deep Thunder Zone with the majority of holes being drilled to depths of approximately 1.1 kilometres; therefore, we expect to release additional results within the next 2-3 months.
"The recent drilling at the Blacktop zone seems promising, and we are eager to follow up on these intersections from surface", said Jacques Perron, President & CEO of SAS. "We have been very encouraged by the results of our exploration activities at and adjacent to the Holloway Mine, namely the Smoke Deep and Deep Thunder zones, and these recent results from Deep Thunder continue to confirm our belief of the presence of a potentially large zone of gold mineralization. We will continue to test the extent of this zone as well as confirm the higher grade portions and look forward to providing additional results as they become available."
Drilling, Assaying and QA/QC
Surface drilling at the Deep Thunder Zone was completed by Orbit Garant and underground drilling near the Blacktop Zone was completed by Forage Azimut Inc. Analytical work was performed by Laboratoire Expert Inc. in Rouyn-Noranda, an accredited lab. SAS utilized a quality control/quality assurance program consisting of a number of sample standards and blanks that were inserted into the sample string, which represented approximately 5% of the total sample population.
Qualified Person
The exploration programs on the Company's various mineral properties are under the supervision of Michael Michaud, P.Geo, the Company's Vice President of Exploration. Exploration drilling conducted at the Blacktop Zone is under the supervision of Craig Todd, P.Geo, the Company's Chief Mine Geologist at the Holloway Mine. Mr. Michaud and Mr. Todd are qualified persons as defined by NI 43-101, and have reviewed and approved this news release.
Source: St Andrew Goldfields Ltd.