Manhattan Gold Corporation has unearthed a swag of high-grade gold results from first-pass sampling at its newly acquired and never-before-drilled Vanquish prospect in Nunavut, Canada, hitting a hefty 20 grams per tonne (g/t) gold in testing.
The results from a quickfire channel and grab sampling program at the prospect within the company’s expansive Hook Lake project included impressive channel assays of 18.55g/t gold over 0.3 metres and 15.45g/t gold over 0.4m.
The new work at Vanquish, which sits 80 kilometres west of Manhattan’s flagship Jaws target, has now identified gold mineralisation over at least 131 metres of strike, significantly expanding a footprint previously defined by historic surface trenching that returned 5.75g/t gold over 1.5m.
Manhattan only recently acquired the prospect in April after a review of historic data identified the biggest gold-arsenic till anomaly within the Kaminak greenstone belt, which forms part of the broader Rankin Ennadai greenstone belt.
Despite the compelling geochemical smoke, the target has never been kissed by the drill bit. The company says the reconnaissance sampling at Vanquish was completed during the mobilisation of the drill rig and supporting equipment to Jaws.
Vanquish is one of 12 prospects within Manhattan’s 665-square-kilometre Hook Lake project, which sits in the underexplored but highly prospective Rankin-Ennadai greenstone belt.
The belt is also home to mining giant Agnico Eagle’s 6.7-million-ounce Meliadine operation, 225 kilometres to the northeast and one of Canada's largest gold mines. The company says this underlines the world-class gold endowment of the region and suggests it has the potential for further significant deposits.
Manhattan Gold Corporation technical advisor Eric Sondergaard said: “The early results from Vanquish are particularly exciting. This is a newly acquired, never- drilled prospect where a limited first-pass program has already delivered grades of up to 20g/t gold and confirmed mineralisation across 131 metres of strike.”
Manhattan’s current work is focused on a maiden reverse circulation program at its flagship Jaws target, where drilling in the 1980’s outlined a historical foreign resource estimate of 3.4 million tonnes grading 2.38g/t gold for a contained 285,000 ounces.
The company is quick to say that the estimate is not compliant with the modern JORC code and it is now eagerly awaiting the first batch of assays from its Jaws drilling program to firm up the numbers for conversion into a JORC-compliant inventory. First results are expected in the coming weeks.
Beyond Jaws and Vanquish, the Hook Lake project hosts a grab-bag of other compelling targets. These include the never-drilled Quantum and Lotus prospects, which have returned surface gold samples of 16.75g/t and 8.01g/t respectively.
Manhattan’s other key target is Spectre, a high-grade polymetallic Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide (VMS) system where drilling in the 1970’s hit a mouthwatering 10.51m at 2.91 per cent copper, 6.7 per cent zinc and 95.67g/t silver.
The company plans to integrate the new high-grade gold results with recently acquired magnetic and LiDAR data to refine the structural model and prioritise drill targets at Vanquish.
With the drill rods turning at its flagship Jaws prospect and a brand new, high-grade discovery at Vanquish screaming to be tested, Manhattan appears to be systematically building a serious inventory of gold targets.
Punters will likely be watching to see if the drill bit at Jaws can deliver what the surface rocks at Vanquish are already suggesting.
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By Murray Ward
