McEwen Mining (NYSE, TSX: MUX) has identified four new gold veins in the Grey Fox area as part of its ongoing exploration program within the Fox Complex in the Timmins gold mining camp in Northern Ontario. The latest drilling results have revealed significant gold mineralization in veins within sedimentary rocks with good gold grades near surface and high-grade gold values at depth.
The four new Grey Fox – Gibson zone veins occur as shallow as 150 metres below surface and, so far, have been traced down to 330 metres. The drill core values are robust and include near-surface intersections of 13.1 g/t gold over 7.3 metres and 6.3 g/t gold over 5 metres; and at depth of 29.1 g/t gold over 1.8 metres. According to McEwen, the advantages of such a shallow location are reduced time and expense for establishing mineral resources and for future mine development.
In the 2021 drilling program, one hole assayed 5.6 g/t gold over 10.2 metres in sediments, and 250 metres to the southwest, another hole assayed 5.2 g/t gold over 3.1 metres core length, also in sediments. Five drill holes from this year’s program have encountered high-grade intercepts or visible gold outside the boundary of existing gold resources. These collective results appear to be on strike and have opened a large corridor of prospective ground, McEwen said.
“What we find exciting about this discovery is that the host rock of these veins is very different than the host rock for 98% of Grey Fox’s estimated gold resources of 1.2 million ounces indicated and 240,000 ounces inferred,” added Stephen McGibbon, SVP exploration.
McGibbon also noted that these newly discovered veins are in the sparsely explored sedimentary rocks. “Such rocks are the same primary gold-bearing host rock as our Froome mine, 3 miles north of Grey Fox, and are also one of the important host rocks of some of the largest gold mines in Timmins such as Newmont Mining’s Pamour, Hollinger and Dome mines,” he said.
At Grey Fox, the gold zones are stacked parallel to a southeast-trending regional flexure in the Destor-Porcupine fault zone. This important regional feature is associated with approximately 3.5 million ounces of gold (past production plus current mineral resources) in the immediate area of Grey Fox.
The Fox Complex comprises almost 7,000 hectares of land package along 18 kilometres of the Destor-Porcupine fault, hosting several properties including Black Fox, Stock and Lexam.
Starting from the east, the Black Fox Property is an important component of the complex, including the Black Fox and Froome mines and the Tamarack and Grey Fox deposits. Drilling is currently underway at Grey Fox to evaluate additional opportunities for resource extensions and definition.
Shares of McEwen Mining dropped 4.3% by 11:50 a.m. ET following the latest exploration results. The company has a market value of $242.8 million.
