ASX-listed Canada-focused gold explorer, Ardiden, has sniffed out further encouraging high-grade gold hits from a diamond drill program designed to probe deeper into the Kasagiminnis deposit at its Pickle Lake gold project in north-west Ontario. According to the Perth-based company, drilling results continue to demonstrate extensions to gold mineralisation and gold grades strengthening at depth.
Notable intersections from the first four holes of the latest 10-hole round at Kasagiminnis were 6m going 4.23 grams per tonne gold from 190m including 2m at 9.53 g/t, 6.5m at 4.28 g/t from 159.5m, and 3m at 3.13 g/t from 164m including 1m at 7.57 g/t, the latter showing visible gold. Assay results for the remaining six holes are pending.
Ardiden says drilling to date has only tested a small portion of the first 250m below surface at Kasagiminnis and that its current exploration approach is focused on increasing its understanding of the structure and geology as drilling delves deeper.
Historical underground gold mines at Pickle Lake were mined to depths of more than 1.2km and collectively produced approximately 3 million ounces of gold. Ardiden is targeting similar deep, large underground high-grade gold lode-style deposits and exploration drilling at Kasagiminnis has only just reached the 200-300m depth range.
Ardiden Chief Executive Officer, Rob Longley said: “Ardiden is hunting deep, high-grade gold deposits across its massive landholding, analogous to other well-known gold deposits in Ontario, such as Red Lake, Dixie, Musselwhite and Hemlo. ‘Kas’ is our first cab off the rank, but with another 18 prospects already in Ardiden’s gold pipeline, we are aiming to create value for investors by increasing our likelihood of making Tier 1 gold deposit discoveries.”
The company’s drilling will now vector in on targets below the 6m at 4.23 g/t intersection as well as step away to the west of the current resource area to test for extensions of gold mineralisation at depth.
Last year Ardiden estimated an inferred resource for Kasagiminnis of 790,000 tonnes of ore grading 4.3 g/t for 110,000 ounces of contained gold.
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