A Wawa-area gold explorer is finding “multiple zones” on its property just south of town.
The latest results from Red Pine Exploration’s diamond drilling program at its Wawa Gold Project indicate “many zones of gold mineralization” in an area where there used to be several operating gold mines.
Two kilometres south of Wawa, the Toronto junior miner has pieced together a 6,500-hectare property of 10 former gold mines that once collectively produced 120,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 8.9 grams per tonne gold. But these mines were never geologically connected.
A number of new discoveries have since been made as Red Pine works to connect the dots with the belief that this is one huge gold system. The company thinks the exploration targets they’ve identified could contain up to three million ounces of gold.
They’ve outlined an area with gold potential extending for five kilometres that they’re calling the Wawa Gold Corridor.
The Surlaga Deposit is one spot that the company has been aggressively exploring to expand the gold footprint inside a geological structure called the Jubilee Shear Zone.
Since November 2014, Red Pine has been combing through thousands of metres of old drill core from previous operators on the property, while conducting more than 58,000 metres of its own drilling on Jubilee and the Minto Mine South Shear Zone.
The property hosts an inferred resource of 1,088,000 ounces of gold at 1.71 grams per tonne – using a 0.50 g/t cut-off grade – inside 19.82 million tonnes that’s open along strike and at depth.
Starting last July, Red Pine selected and drilled off targets where their geological modeling indicated there might be high grade gold.
The latest results confirm that there are additional zones of gold below the Jubilee.
One drill hole from the Surlaga Deposit contained 1.6 grams per tonne of gold (g/t) over 41 metres, including 5.2 g/t over 3.1 metres, and 4.6 g/t over 6.2 metres. Another hole from a newly discovered zone yielded 3.2 g/t per tonne of gold over 6.5 metres, including 9.0 g/t gold over 2.2 metres.
“Our exploration and in-fill drilling program in the Wawa Gold Corridor continues to show that multiple zones of gold mineralization exist on the property,” said Quentin Yarie, president-CEO of Red Pine in an April 23 news release.
“Our results indicate that these zones contain higher-grade mineralization. The results of our deeper drilling in the Jubilee Shear Zone confirm the down-dip extension of the structure and intersected a noticeable thickening of the shear zone. The results in the deeper holes drilled are typical of the ‘halo’ of lower grade mineralization adjacent to the zones of higher-grade mineralization observed at shallower depths.”
The company plans on posting an updated resource estimate sometime during the middle of this year.
