Stepout drilling is expanding Moneta Porcupine Mines‘ Windjammer South deposit, part of its Golden Highway project, 110 km east of Timmins, Ontario.
The company released four drill holes totalling 2,115 metres from the project that extended gold mineralization over 500 metres west and 200 metres east of the current resource.
Drilling now also confirmed the existence of continuous mineralization between Windjammer South and the South West deposit over a distance of 1 km.
South West is the largest of five deposits at Golden Highway; a preliminary economic assessment (PEA) on the deposit is under way and expected to be completed later this year.
Drilling now also confirmed the existence of continuous mineralization between Windjammer South and the South West deposit
The western stepouts hit highlights of 9.3 metres grading 1.05 g/t gold; 46 metres of 0.95 g/t gold, and 12 metres of 1.15 g/t gold.
The eastern holes hit up to 22 metres of 1.02 g/t gold and 4 metres of 2.46 g/t gold.
“We are pleased to continue to intersect gold mineralization in large step-outs at Windjammer South, extending the system by 500 metres to the west and 200 metres to the east,” said Gary O’Conner, the company’s CEO and chief geologist.
“Gold mineralization has been intersected in multiple wide near surface zones totalling over 200 metres in combined thickness and steep high-grade mineralized structures extending to depth. Significantly, the drill program has confirmed that gold mineralization at Windjammer South connects with our main South West deposit, spanning more than 1 km in distance.”
The four holes are part of a 36 hole winter drill program completed in April that testing the resource extensions of the Windjammer South, West Block and 55 deposits as well as intersecting new mineralization at the Westaway and Halfway targets.
Resource updates for the Windjammer South, South West and 55 deposits are underway, in addition to an initial mineral resource estimate at Westaway.
Earlier in May, the company reported assays from five holes drilled at the Westaway target, 1.2 km west of the South West deposit.
Drilling intersected the extensions of 13 new gold veins at Westaway, confirming extensions of new veins 100 metres to the north and south of the discovery holes, and extending gold mineralized veins by up to 200 metres at depth and 200 metres west.
Assay highlights included 1.9 metres of 9.73 g/t gold and 4.2 metres of 4.49 g/t gold.
The South West deposit has a resource, last updated in November 2019, of 3.2 million indicated tonnes grading 4.53 g/t gold for 472,000 oz., plus 7.3 million tonnes grading 4.37 g/t gold for 1.1 million oz.
Windjammer South hosts 364,000 tonnes grading 4.19 g/t gold for 49,100 oz. in the indicated category and 173,000 tonnes grading 4.59 g/t gold for 25,500 oz. in the inferred category.
Total indicated resources at Golden Highway stand at 556,500 oz. gold contained within 3.8 million tonnes 4.53 g/t gold; inferred resources add 1.2 million oz. gold contained within 8.5 million tonnes grading 4.31 g/t gold at a cutoff grade of 3 g/t Au gold.
The Golden Highway Project covers 12 km of prospective ground along the Destor-Porcupine Fault zone in the Timmins gold camp; current resources are contained along 4 km of strike.
(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)
