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Home > News > Maple Gold reports final...

Maple Gold reports final assays from deep drilling at Douay

Aug 3, 2023


"This deep drilling program was developed to test the potential for a much larger gold system at Douay while also demonstrating continuity of mineralization beneath currently defined Mineral Resources," said Matthew Hornor, President and CEO. "The average vertical depth of all previous drilling at Douay is roughly 300 m, with limited data below 500 m, so this first pass of deeper drilling was discovery-focused with the aim of bringing us one step closer to uncovering a new zone at depth. The program was successful from a proof-of-concept standpoint in demonstrating mineralization continuity up to four times deeper than Douay's currently defined Mineral Resources. Given what we've encountered in the JV's first deep drill holes, the Company remains highly encouraged and confident that our detailed interpretation and vectoring work will lead to promising follow-up targets to incorporate into future drill campaigns at Douay. To support these ongoing initiatives, I am delighted to welcome Josh Pelletier as the Company's new Chief Geologist and believe that his strong structural geology and metallogeny background will help unlock value at our strategically located and district-scale project portfolio within Quebec's Abitibi greenstone belt." 

Maple Gold Mines Ltd. is reporting complete gold assay results from the first phase of deep drilling at the Douay Gold Project ("Douay") located in Québec, Canada, which is held by a 50/50 joint venture (the "JV") between the Company and Agnico Eagle Mines Limited. The Company is also pleased to announce the appointment of Jocelyn (Josh) Pelletier, M.Sc., P.geo. as its Chief Geologist. Mr. Pelletier is both a structural geologist and a specialist in metallogeny who brings more than 20 years of progressive exploration experience primarily focused on the formation of gold deposits and porphyry copper-gold systems. The Company also announces that Joness Lang and Fred Speidel have left the Company to pursue other opportunities.

At Douay, the JV completed a total of 5,793 metres ("m") in three new holes and two extension holes during the first half of 2023. Four drill holes were designed as deep conceptual exploration holes to test for mineralization extensions at greater depths (up to ~1,600 m vertical depth) beneath Douay's currently defined Mineral Resources, and the fifth drill hole was a shallower step-out hole to the east of the NW Zone (see Figure 1 for a plan view map depicting drill hole locations and key results, Figure 2 for a composite longitudinal section and Table 1 for a detailed summary of assay results). This first phase of widely spaced (from ~500 m to ~3,000 m between holes) deep drilling returned 10 separate intercepts >2.5 gold grams per tonne ("g/t Au") and four broad intervals (from ~59 to ~221 m in length) of low-grade (mostly >0.1 g/t Au) gold mineralization, demonstrating that a deep-rooted gold system is present to the current limits of drilling. Pending multi-element assays from the first phase of deep drilling will be incorporated into ongoing vectoring efforts to develop follow up targets to continue testing the depth potential at Douay from successful proof-of-concept towards potentially economic gold intercepts in undrilled zones over more than six kilometers of strike length. 

Highlighted Results and Key Takeaways:

  • All five drill holes intersected gold mineralization >1 g/t Au, with 10 intercepts >2.5 g/t Au and several broad (from ~59 m to ~221 m in length) low-grade intervals (averaging 0.1 to 0.3 g/t Au), demonstrating continuity of the gold system down to at least ~1,600 m vertical depth.

  • DO-23-332 and DO-23-326X both tested beneath the Porphyry Zone and returned the most compelling visual core observations with broad intervals of alteration and elevated fine grained pyrite mineralization. Such broad low-grade haloes, with multiple >1 g/t Au intercepts, are typical of the more peripheral parts of the Porphyry Zone.

  • DO-23-332 intersected 10 distinct intercepts of >1 g/t Au over at least 1.0 m. A broad (121 m) mineralized envelope with anomalous gold (0.31 g/t Au average) included intercepts of 3.6 g/t Au over 1 m, and 1.2 g/t Au over 10 m, including 3.3 g/t Au over 2 m. Additional 4.9 and 2.5 g/t Au intercepts over 1 m were obtained further up hole.

  • DO-23-326X returned eight intercepts grading >1 g/t Au over at least 1 m. Furthermore, this hole did not appear to intersect the full width of the potential zone and, importantly, bottomed in mineralization (see cross section in Figure 3). Visible gold was also identified at 1,826 m down-hole.

  • DO-23-331 was collared ~500 m south of the 531 Zone conceptual pit and returned 2.85 g/t Au over 1.6 m, including 6.2 g/t Au over 0.7 m, with a broader interval of 0.25 g/t Au over 50.8 m further up-hole.

 

Technical Observations, Key Takeaways and Next Steps

The JV's first phase deep drilling program delivered several key geological findings related to the potential depth continuity of gold mineralization at Douay:

  • From top-to-bottom (~2,000 m vertical depth), gold mineralization appears to be spatially associated with a porphyry-style intrusive complex and also appears in quartz-carbonate veins associated with shearing in the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone ("CBDZ") that may be related to a separate orogenic gold system along this E-W regional structure. 
  • Gold mineralization was identified within the contact zone between the two main lithologic sequences (Cartwright Hills Grp. volcanic sequences and Taibi Grp. sedimentary rocks) located along the crustal-scale CBDZ North structural corridor.
  • There are key structural corridors that appear to crosscut the auriferous porphyry-style mineralization, which provides potential for gold remobilization and reconcentration.

At Douay, two types of gold mineralization have been recognized: 1) gold that is spatially associated with porphyritic intrusive phases and 2) gold that is spatially associated with shear zones in the CBDZ. Both styles of mineralization may have formed in different conditions and time frames. The porphyry-style gold displays similarities to low-grade gold zones formed in magmatic-hydrothermal systems, while the gold related to shear zones is similar to other orogenic gold deposits that represent the majority of gold mines in the Abitibi gold belt. Therefore, it is important to distinguish both mineralization events, and to define their spatial distributions and orientations. The JV will be completing additional metallogenic interpretations and analysis to generate optimal targeting at Douay for future drill testing.



Tags: Quebec / Exploration / Gold / All Articles