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West Red Lake hits high grade sections at South Austin Zone of Madsen Mine

Apr 18, 2024


“We are very pleased with the results that have been coming out from the South Austin definition program," said Shane Williams, President & CEO.  

"The team has been intercepting zones of mineralization where expected, which is helping to increase our confidence in the higher priority areas of the resource model and validates our interpretation of the geology. Now that we have added a second underground drill at North Austin, we expect to be generating a steady stream of positive news flow from North and South Austin over the coming months.”

West Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. is reporting drill results from its 100% owned Madsen Mine located in the Red Lake Gold District of Northwestern Ontario. 

The drill results featured in this news release were focused on the high-grade South Austin Zone, which currently contains an Indicated mineral resource of 474,600 ounces (“oz”) grading 8.7 grams per tonne (“g/t”) gold (“Au”), with an additional Inferred resource of 31,800 oz grading 8.7 g/t Au.

The purpose of this drilling was definition within South Austin to continue building an inventory of high-confidence ounces for eventual restart of the Madsen mill. 

HIGHLIGHTS:

  • Hole MM24D-07-4198-001 Intersected 1.1m @ 68.36 g/t Au, from 74.25m to 75.35m, Including 0.5m @ 145.44 g/t Au, from 74.85m to 75.35m

     

  • Hole MM24D-07-4198-002 Intersected 3.95m @ 13.83 g/t Au, from 7.55m to 11.5m, Including 0.5m @ 105.72 g/t Au, from 7.55m to 8.05m.

     

  • The high-grade mineralization encountered near the collar (top of hole) in Holes MM24D-07-4198-002 and MM24D-07-4198-006 is believed to be the down-dip continuation of a mineralized zone defined further up in the system. These intercepts are expected to extend this zone in future model updates.

Plan maps and section for the South Austin drilling outlined in this release are provided in Figures 2 through 6. 

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DISCUSSION

Accessed through the Madsen Mine West Portal, the South Austin Zone sits south in the hanging wall of the main Austin Zone. Like the other mineralized domains that comprise the Madsen Mine, the South Austin structure is hosted within broad, kilometer-scale planar alteration and deformation corridors that have been repeatedly reactivated during gold mineralization and subsequent deformation and metamorphism. 

At the deposit-scale the Austin, South Austin, North Austin, and McVeigh Zones are locally folded and structurally dismembered by transposition and rotation into the penetrative S2 Foliation. In addition to this intense deformation overprint, the mineralized veins and alteration have been subjected to the relatively high temperatures of amphibolite facies metamorphism, which led to extensive recrystallization and growth of the skarn-like replacement mineral assemblage of diopside-amphibole-quartz-biotite. 

All significant gold mineralization on the mine property is demonstrably early relative to the most significant, penetrative deformation (D2) and metamorphic events. The North Austin Zone displays ‘mine-style’ alteration and mineralization and consists of multiple mineralized domains defined over a strike length of 0.5km. Mineralization remains open at depth and along strike to the northeast. 

In drill core, or at underground face exposures, gold-bearing zones at the Madsen Mine are best identified visually by fine (sub-millimetre) grains of free gold within strong alteration and veining. All high-grade intervals generally contain visible gold on drill core exteriors, although numerous examples exist of high-grade assays where visible gold was only identified within the interior (cut surface) of the core samples. Apart from the presence of free gold, pervasive silicification (locally accompanied by discrete quartz veining) and quartz-carbonate or diopside veining are the best indicators that a given interval is within a high-grade zone along/within the mineralized structure.  

The current underground drilling program at the Madsen Mine is focused on further definition of near-term mining inventory, as well as growth of the current mineral resource. Drilling has been focused on the more continuous and higher-grade portions of the Austin, South Austin, and North Austin Zones. This will continue to be the strategy through 2024.

High resolution versions of all the figures contained in this press release can be found at the following web address: https://westredlakegold.com/april-news-release-maps/ 



Tags: Northern Ontario / Exploration / Gold / All Articles