ASX-listed Canada explorer, Ardiden has picked up an encouraging hint of gold-bearing mineralisation similar to that of an adjoining historical high-grade gold mine from drilling at one of its high-priority brownfields targets within its Pickle Lake gold project in north-west Ontario.
As it continues to make steady drilling progress during the northern winter, the Perth-based company says one of the diamond holes from its first drilling work at the South Limb prospect has encountered significant pyrrhotite sulphides going up to 7 per cent pyrrhotite associated in quartz veining intersected at 244.4 metres depth within a wide zone of banded iron formation.
South Limb is located immediately along strike of Newmont Corp’s historic Dona Lake gold mine, which produced 246,500 ounces of gold from ore that went an impressive average grade of 6.6 grams per tonne to a depth of 450m before weak gold prices led to its closure almost 30 years ago.
Ardiden points out that historical data from mining at the old Dona Lake gold mine indicates its gold ore zones are strongly associated with pyrrhotite sulphides.
The company says its planned 1,500m winter diamond drilling program at the north-eastern end of the South Limb prospect is designed to provide an initial test of gold mineralisation within the banded iron formations extending south from the Dona Lake mine.
So far this winter it has sunk four diamond drill holes for an aggregate coverage of 950m into the South Limb prospect.
Ardiden Chief Executive Officer, Rob Longley said: “Ground exploration activities at Pickle Lake are running smoothly and some exciting sulphides have been intersected in our South Limb drilling next to the Dona Lake mine. We are on schedule to complete the initial drilling at South Limb and then move across to drill at Kas (Kasagiminnis).”
“It is great to see processed imagery from the drone magnetic survey over the frozen lake at Kas, help map out the highly prospective iron formation. Our site geologists are unravelling the structural and lithological controls on gold mineralisation at South Limb and Kas, as we collect more oriented data from these previously untested areas.”
Preparations for a 3,500m winter diamond drilling program over the frozen lake section of Ardiden’s 110,000-ounce Kasagiminnis gold deposit, 17 kilometres south-west of South Limb, is also well advanced, the company says.
According to Ardiden, magnetic imagery from its recent drone survey shows the banded iron formation extending all the way across the lake and continuing to the east for at least 1.5km.
The drilling at Kasagiminnis is due to resume once the South Limb drilling has been completed, most likely next month. South Limb is situated 17km north-east of Kasagiminnis.
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By Matt Birney
