*This article was originally written by Colin McClelland and published in The Northern Miner
The Northern Miner’s Drill Down features highlights of the best gold assays from the April 5-12 period. Drill holes are ranked by gold grade x width as identified by data company Mining Intelligence.
Results from Canada and Papua New Guinea led the week’s best assays. Quartz Mountain Resources (TSXV: QZM) marked a new discovery at the Maestro project in central British Columbia. Wesdome Gold Mines (TSX: WDO) says it’s expanding its Kiena mine in Val d’Or, Que., and St. Barbara (ASX: SBM) says drilling confirms mineralized zones it found at its Simberi project this year.
Maestro
Quartz Mountain cut 102 metres grading 2.2 grams gold per tonne for a grade x width value of 226 from 537 metres depth in hole PR-23-02 at the Prodigy target, the company said on April 9. The hole included 12 metres at 1.23 grams gold and 586 grams silver and 36 metres of 5.73 grams gold and 87 grams silver, it said.
The assay shows a new gold-silver system at Maestro that could be related to the Lone Pine molybdenum-copper porphyry deposit discovered in 1914 about 1 km south of Prodigy, Quartz said. Lone Pine was held by the now defunct Bard Ventures.
“Early observations suggest there are multiple overlapping mineralizing events that occurred over a long period of time,” Quartz chairman Bob Dickinson said in a release. “Over my career, long-lived and multi-generational mineral systems are common factors that make mines globally, which is very encouraging to see at Maestro.”
Quartz said it combined results from drill holes PR-23-02 and PR-23-01 with results from 10 historical core holes Bard Ventures drilled from 2007 to 2011 at Prodigy. The area measures 275 metres north-south by 400 metres east-west. The lode and the more disseminated precious metals intersected by holes PR-23-01 and PR-23-02 are hosted within a large and earlier-deposited molybdenum-copper porphyry system, the company said.
The 23-sq.-km Maestro, located near Houston about 1,000 km north of Vancouver, has year-round road access and nearby rail, hydroelectricity and natural gas. Vancouver-based Quartz acquired the project in 2021. The company is a member of the Hunter Dickinson group, whose former projects in B.C. are Centerra Gold’s (TSX: CG; NYSE: CGAU) Mount Milligan and Kemess South and Taseko Mines’ (TSX: TKO; NYSE-AM: TGB; LSE: TKO) Gibraltar mine.
Kiena
Wesdome cut 3.5 metres grading 55.6 grams for a width x grade value of 195 from 337.4 metres depth in hole N127-6913 in the Footwall zone at the Kiena mine, the company said on April 8. Hole N127-6912 returned 11.1 metres at 13.8 grams and 6.7 metres at 22 grams.
The latest underground drilling results continue to better define the Footwall, South Limb and Wish zones as the company plans to convert inferred resources to indicated, Wesdome said.
The company is increasing exploration this year with about $30 million budgeted between the Kiena and Eagle River mines amounting to 185,000 metres.
“We are seeing immediate returns from this stepped-up effort at Kiena with results that are not only expanding and defining existing zones at Kiena Deep, but also identifying potentially significant gold mineralization in historically underexplored areas like Wish,” president and CEO Anthea Bath said in a release.
“These initial high-grade results are all in proximity to our existing underground infrastructure such that they could be low-cost to develop.”
Simberi
At St. Barbara’s Simberi project in Papua New Guinea, drill hole SDH531 cut 56 metres at 2.9 grams for a width x grade value of 162 from 103 metres depth, the company said on April 10. Drill hole SDH533 returned 45 metres at 2.2 grams from surface, including 10 metres at 5.1 grams; and hole SDH534 cut 14 metres at 2.2 grams from 122 metres depth.
The assays define new broad mineralization along the targeted northwest trend first reported in March between the existing Sorowar and Pigiput ore bodies and outside any current inferred resource area, the company said.
“This is the first sulphide-focused diamond drilling program at Simberi since 2011,” managing director and CEO Andrew Strelein said in a release. “We are getting positive results by applying more than 10 years of improvement in geological knowledge and targeting insufficiently drilled areas.”
