An Australia gold explorer continues to acquire more ground near some former mines in the Pickle Lake area.
Perth-based Ardiden proclaims it is now the largest landholder in the former northwestern Ontario gold mining camp after recently staking more ground to grow its land package to 664 square kilometres.
In an April 9 news release, Ardiden said they’ve been selectively adding ground adjacent to its Pickle Lake Gold Project, which consists of four gold prospects, namely Kasagiminnis, Dorothy-Dobie, South Limb, and West Pickle. One property contains the former Golden Patricia Gold Mine.
The new piece of ground, dubbed the Fry-McVean property, connects to Ardiden’s Dorothy-Dobie property, southwest of the town of Pickle Lake.
Since taking over full control of the Pickle Lake Gold Project last summer from its former joint venture partner, Murchison Minerals, Ardiden has been steadily growing their footprint from 123 square kilometres to 257 square kilometres in January to 500 square kilometres by March.
The company said they’re picking ground that has comparable geology to that of nearby gold camps in the northwest, such as Newmont’s Musselwhite Mine, Evolution’s Red Lake operations, and Great Bear Resources’ Dixie Project in the Red Lake district.
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With more ground to explore, Ardiden said it can gain a bigger picture of the area’s gold potential by running old exploration data and drill core results through their analytical software.
But Ardiden isn’t jumping into the field just yet.
Based on the conditions surrounding COVID-19, any exploration drilling is being pushed off to the summer.
Once things return to normal, their first priority is to resume drilling at its high-grade Kasagiminnis deposit.
Ardiden published a maiden inferred resource of that deposit last September showing 790,000 tonnes for 110,000 ounces of gold at a grade of 4.3 grams per tonne.
Company managing director Rob Longley said adding more ground gives them a “massive exploration portfolio” within one of the best gold districts in the world.
“The Pickle Lake Gold project area has been vastly unexplored and is ripe for Ardiden to apply modern exploration methods systematically across its large landholding.”
“This affords Ardiden a significant opportunity to progressively build a considerable high-grade gold resource over time.”
