West Red Lake Gold hits spectacular highgrade at Rowan Property

"There are very few places in the world where the geologic conditions exist to produce an intercept of this calibre, and the Red Lake district has demonstrated time and again that it is most definitely one of them," said Shane Williams, President & CEO. "Our exploration team has already been immensely successful with the drilling program at the Rowan Mine target in 2023, and the spectacular drill results highlighted in this news release only emphasize the upside that still exists at Rowan. Our team is confident that we are only just starting to scratch the surface at Rowan with many more exciting discoveries to come.”

West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. is pleased to announce the following update from the 2023 exploration drilling program on its 100% owned Rowan Property located in the prolific Red Lake Gold District of Northwestern Ontario, Canada. Hole RLG-23-163B intersected 70.80 grams per tonne (“g/t”) gold (“Au”) over 8.3 metres(“m”), including 1,120.19 g/t Au over 0.5 m. 

This hole represents the highest-grade intercept ever drilled across the Rowan Property and is a testament to the continued success our exploration team is achieving with the 2023 drilling campaign. The drill program at Rowan has already been expanded from 17,000 m to 25,000 m, and these results only further validate the team’s commitment to the Rowan asset. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

• Hole RLG-23-163B Intersected 8.3m @ 70.80 g/t Au in Vein Zone 101 from 387 m to 395.3 m, including 0.5 m @ 13.46 g/t Au from 389 m to 389.5 m, 0.5 m @ 1,120.19 g/t Au from 393.5 m to 394 m and 0.6 m @ 29.64 g/t Au from 394.7 m to 395.3 m.

   

• This represents the highest-grade intercept ever drilled across the Rowan Property.

   

• The location of the pierce point on Vein 101 represents one of the deeper intercepts drilled within the high-grade East Zone which could be indicating that the vein system is increasing in grade and thickness with depth.

   

• The exploration team is immediately following up on this success to further define this extremely high-grade and thick portion of gold mineralization within the already impressive East Zone at Rowan.

Figure 1. Impressive visible gold showing within intercept grading 1,120.19 g/t Au. Diamond drill core in this photo is NQ diameter (47.6 millimeters).

The high-grade mineralized vein zones encountered at the Rowan Mine target area (the “Rowan Mine Target”) continue to exceed expectations, confirm the geologic model, and further improve the existing high-grade (9.2 g/t Au) 827,462 ounce Inferred Mineral Resource at the Rowan Mine. Plan map and sections for the Rowan Mine drilling outlined in this release are provided in Figures 2 through 4. 

A total of 17,000 m of infill and expansion drilling was originally proposed for the Rowan Mine target in 2023. Based on the positive results received to date, the program has been expanded to 25,000 m and is expected to be completed by year end 2023. The additional drill meters will be used to continue de-risking the Rowan Mine resource, and test the growth potential down-plunge on the highest-grade portions of the resource. Current drilling at Rowan has only tested mineralization down to a depth of approximately 550 m. All of the high-grade zones still remain open below this vertical depth. The Red Lake Mining District is known to host orebodies that extend down to +4 kilometre (“km”) depth, which bodes well for the down-plunge growth potential at Rowan.

It is the Company’s belief that potential synergies could exist between high-grade resources at the Rowan Mine target area and Madsen. The Company has initiated a metallurgical study at Rowan to begin evaluating this potential opportunity, as well as a geotechnical study to better characterize the rock mass properties within the mineralized vein zones at Rowan.

In conjunction with infill and expansion drilling, the Company is also initiating the necessary baseline environmental and archaeological assessments to begin moving the project towards an Advanced Exploration Permit status. 

FIGURE 2. Deposit-scale plan map of Rowan Mine Target area showing traces and intercepts for holes highlighted in this News Release.

DISCUSSION

The Rowan Mine Target consists of more than seven sub-parallel, near-vertical, east-west trending veins that are currently defined over a strike length of approximately 1.1 km– mineralization remains open along strike and at depth. The orientation of the veins at the Rowan Mine tend to follow the direction of D2 deformation, which is oriented in an east-west direction over this part of the property. Individual mineralized veins usually average 1.0 to 1.5 m in thickness, with an overall thickness of the Rowan vein corridor at around 115 m. Gold mineralization is typically localized within quartz-carbonate veins hosted within and along the ‘footwall’ margin of a porphyritic felsic intrusive, with increased grades often associated with the presence of visible gold and base metal sulphides (e.g. galena, sphalerite). High-grade dilation zones or ‘ore chutes’ along the Rowan vein trend have been recognized as important controls for localizing thicker and higher-grade zones of gold mineralization. The position and geometry of these dilation zones is well understood at Rowan.

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