Our TNM Drill Down features the top gold assays of the week of July 21-28. Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width, as identified by data provider Cost Mine Intelligence.
New Found Gold (TSX-V: NFG) reported the week’s top drill assays, reporting on July 26 the first follow-up results of step-out drilling along the prospective Appleton Fault Zone on the Queensway South (QWS) property in Newfoundland. Hole NFGC-23-1089 cut 2.8 metres grading 100.65 grams gold per tonne from 158.2 metres depth for a width x grade value of 277. QWS is a bordering portion of New Found’s 100%-owned Queensway project. It covers roughly 65 km of strike extension on the regional Appleton and JBP Fault Zones across 1,320 sq. km of the Queensway project’s total area of 1,662 sq. km.Â
The company said it was rare for an explorer to record 27 hits in 33 wildcat drill holes during a first-pass campaign, pointing to the potential for a second program on the QWS to uncover significant mineralization in a setting identical to what has already been discovered at the flagship Queensway project. The company is undertaking 500,000 metres of drilling at Queensway, and about 48,700 metres of core is pending assay results. About 10,000 metres of drilling has been budgeted this year for QWS.
The second-best gold assay reported this week comes from Australia, where Kaiser Reef (ASX: KAU) drilled 9.5 metres grading 25.5 grams gold per tonne from 11 metres depth for a width x grade value of 242. The results come from its cornerstone A1 mine in Victoria, where exploration points towards an opportunity to develop a new mining area close to the previously mined Victory and Welcome reefs.Â
Diamond drilling continues in the A1 operations from the 1410 South development, where the company is tracing high-grade quartz veins with visible gold. Coincidently, the company said the 1250-840 reef currently being mined was delivering ‘spectacular’ visible gold in production ore. Since 1861, the mine has historically averaged 25 grams of gold per tonne in production.
In the third spot this week is Mako Mining (TSX-V: MKO) after completing 211 reverse-circulation drill holes for 8,000 metres at its Las Conchitas mine, just south of its producing San Albino mine in Nicaragua. The company reported on July 27 that hole LC23-RC65 cut 5 metres grading 30.45 grams gold per tonne from 13 metres depth for a width x grade value of 152.
One of the main objectives of the near-surface infill drilling campaign is to gain a higher level of confidence in the geometry of the mineralization in six areas of interest where the company has received a permit to process material through the San Albino plant. The second objective is to test possible extensions of the high-grade mineralized blocks and mineralization trends identified in the 2022 campaign. Mako has received assay results from 82 drill holes from two areas in the northern portion of Las Conchitas – the San Pablo and Mina Francisco zones.
