Drilling by Northern Gold on its Golden Bear properties encouraging
By Gregory Reynolds
Diamond drill results are offering encouragement to the management of Northern Gold Mining Inc. about its Golden Bear Project in Northeastern Ontario.
Northern Gold is currently engaged in advanced exploration on several of its properties located east of Timmins. The Golden Bear properties are situated on the Destor-Porcupine Fault Zone and extend regionally across a 40 km area.
Golden Bear includes the Garrison Gold Property which hosts the Jonpol and Garrcon Deposits, the Buffonta Property and the Victory Gold - Gold Pike Mine Property.
Garrison is situated in the Archean-age Superior Province of the Canadian Shield and specifically within the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, one of the world’s largest Archean Greenstone Belts. It extends across the Ontario-Quebec border and hosts numerous precious and base metal deposits.
The property includes approximately four kilometres of the regionally significant Destor-Porcupine Fault System, a major crustal break extending over 300 kilometres from west of Timmins to east of Val d’Or, Quebec.
It is spatially related to more than 100 gold deposits mined along the fault, and its southern splay, the Cadillac Break
Garrison is favourably situated for gold mineralization astride two major faults, including a 2.5 km portion of the Destor-Porcupine (to the south) and a 1.7 km portion of the Munro Fault (to the north), a splay off the Destor-Porcupine.
Garrison’s gold mineralization is found in rocks exposed at surface at numerous locations, and is reported in hundreds of drill holes by various operators creating multiple targets for current and future exploration.
The Jonpol Deposit, within the patented claim group, consists of four high grade gold mineralized zones (JP, JD, RP and East) discovered over a strike length of 1.7 km within the Munro Fault Zone.
The NI 43-101 Resource Estimate for the Jonpol consists of: Indicated resource of 253,100 tonnes of ore grading at 7.77 g/t containing 63,000 ounces of gold and an inferred resource of 1,555,800 tonnes of ore grading at 4.93 g/t containing 247,000 ounces of gold.
The Jonpol Deposit underground consists of a 500ft vertical shaft and a ramp to the 450 ft level.
Current drilling has extended the zone to 5600ft on strike to include the JD Zone, the RP Zone and the JonPol East Zone and to a depth of 1000ft. An updated resource estimate and a PEA are anticpated to be released in early summer 2013. In the 1990’s Hillsbourough Resources extracted a 54,000T sample grading a full 8 g/t Au from the JP Zone.
The Garrcon Deposit is situated with the Destor-Porcupine Fault on its southern border and is open to the west, east, north and at depth. The deposit is at surface with grades proven to increase with depth.
The company is focused on determining the size and overall grade of the deposit to outline a large tonnage, open pit mine. The property merits the expenditure of additional funds to continue expanding, delineating, and developing the resource, as well as the implementation of detailed metallurgical test work that can be used in any future project feasibility study.
Buffonta is located two km southwest of the Garrison Property in the Garrison, Thackeray and Harker Townships in Northeastern Ontario. Combined with several mining claims staked by Northern Gold, the historic Buffonta claim group comprises a contiguous block of 90 staked mining claims and 24 patented mining claims totalling 2122 hectares.
Buffonta is a past-producing mine with historical gold resources. It is a high grade open pit with near term development opportunities. Significant expansion potential exists down dip and within undeveloped zones.
On March 26, Northern Gold announced results from the first 13 diamond drill holes from its surface diamond drilling program on its wholly-owned Jonpol Deposit, 100 km east of Timmins. The 13 drill holes totaled 3,616.5 metres, with the following assay highlights: 23.50 g/t Au over 4.1 m (237.9 to 242.0m) JP-12-04, 7.25 g/t Au over 3.0 m (63.0 to 66.0m) JP-13-11, 5.99 g/t Au over 3.5 m (163.5 to 167.0m) JP-13-23 and 5.67 g/t Au over 8.0 m (68.0 to 76.0m) JPGT-01.
Greg Gibson, president and CEO of Northern Gold, commented: “These results represent our first drilling campaign at Jonpol. Infill holes confirm the continuity and tenor of the known resource area while the successful step-out holes provide a glimpse of the potential for resource expansion between and below known mineralized zones.”
JP series drill holes are either infill into or step out from the known Jonpol Deposit Resources while GT series drill holes are geotechnical holes designed to test crown pillar stability.
On March 5, Northern Gold announced results of the first three diamond drill holes totaling 997.5 metres from its winter surface diamond drilling program on its newly acquired Buffonta Property. To date, 15 drill holes totaling over 5,000 metres were completed during the winter drilling program.
Drill assay highlights of the three drill holes include: 3.50 g/t Au over 3.0m (106.5 to 109.5m) BUF-12-01, 7.99 g/t Au over 1.15m (206.85 to 208.0m) BUF-12-01, 5.95 g/t Au over 2.0m (26.0 to 28.0m) BUF-12-02 and 4.82 g/t Au over 7.5m (144.5 to 152.0m) BUF-12-02.
Gibson commented: “These drill intercepts uncover mineralization beyond the known historical resources on the Buffonta Property with grades in line with these resources. We are definitely encouraged by the geology and mineralization we continue to encounter and look forward to providing further results as they become available.”
All three drill holes successfully intersected significant gold mineralization hosted in either quartz veins or silica-flooded zones in variolitic and massive basalt at or proximal to the contact with the southeasterly-striking Buffonta Fault and felsic dykes which are interpreted to emanate from the Garrison granodioritic intrusive stock.
Also of note, drill holes BUF-12-01 and BUF-12-03 intersected kimberlite (often a diamond host) at the Buffonta Fault.
The objective of the current drilling program is two-fold: to confirm the extension of mineralization below the Kerr Pit and to test for continuity between the Kerr Pit and Zones No.5 and No.6, located 350 metres to the southeast.
Buffonta hosts three known gold zones - Kerr Pit, No. 5 Zone, and No. 6 Zone. Historical production reports indicate that 9,000 ounces of gold were recovered from a total of 70,000 tons milled at the Kerr Addison Mine Mill.
On Feb. 7th, Northern Gold completed the acquisition of a 100% interest in Victory Gold Mines Inc. with its Gold Pike Mine Property located adjacent to the operating Brigus Black Fox Mine and St Andrew Goldfields Hislop Mine in the Timmins Gold District.
At the recently acquired Gold Pike Property, Royal Oak Mines extracted approximately 100,000Tof ore to a depth of 100ft and recovered 10,000oz of gold in the early 1980’s. Recent drill data obtained by Victory Mines (now a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northern Gold) is presently being analyzed with the focus to initiate a NI 43-101 compliant resource.
The Victory Property comprises 1,163 acres along the Destor-Porcupine Fault. As of October 2012, the company had completed 37 drill holes, totalling 7,207 metres with the following highlights: 2.02 g/tonne Au over 71.5 meters - GP-11-14, 3.35 g/tonne Au over 31.5 meters - GP-12-19 and 3.91 g/tonne Au over 15.6 meters - GP-12-32.
The company also owns the Harker-Holloway Claim Group that is contiguous with the Buffonta Mine Group to the west and extends north-easterly across Harker, Holloway and Marriot Townships; the claim group also extends south into Elliot, Tannahill and Clifford Townships.
The Harker-Holloway claim group comprises a contiguous block of 276 staked mining claims, three mining leases and 15 patented mining claims totalling 12575 hectares.
•The Iris deposit boasts a historic gold/tungsten resource with expansion potential both along strike and at depth
•Existing 500ft surface decline with potential for resource development
•Extensive land package with very little historical exploration covering 27 km along the strike horizon of the Iris deposit
•Potential for the discovery of both bulk tonnage low grade gold/tungsten deposits as well as high grade deposits.
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