Maybe spawned by drilling nearby... everybody's excited FALCON HIRES CENTRELINE FOR GREAT BURNT DRILLING
Falcon Gold Corp. has awarded a drilling contract to CentreLine Drilling of Newfoundland to conduct a diamond drilling program at its 100-per-cent-owned Great Burnt copper project in central Newfoundland. The company initially plans to test up to 10 geophysical anomalies with a maximum of 1,100 metres of drilling. Falcon will provide further guidance on an estimated drill start date once logistics for the program are determined and remaining service providers are confirmed.
Falcon holds 2,275 hectares in the Great Burnt camp, with licences located north of, and contiguous to, Benton Resources Inc.-Spruce Ridge Resources Ltd.'s Great Burnt copper-gold joint venture. Benton Resources recently optioned the Great Burnt copper-gold project from Spruce Ridge Resources in an agreement that allows Benton to earn a 70-per-cent interest in the property (see press release dated Aug. 17, 2023). The Benton-Spruce Ridge property is host to the Great Burnt copper zone, a deposit with an indicated resource of 381,300 tonnes at 2.68 per cent copper (Cu) and inferred resources of 663,100 tonnes at 2.10 per cent Cu. Recent drilling by Benton at the Great Burnt copper deposit reported drill results that returned 7.20 per cent Cu, 7.12 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag) and 0.05 per cent cobalt (Co) over 12.30 metres (see press release dated Dec. 5, 2023). Previous drilling in 2020 by Spruce Ridge reported 8.06 per cent Cu over 27.2 m. The Great Burnt greenstone belt is prospective for copper and gold, and further hosts the South Pond A and South Pond B copper-gold zones, and the End zone copper prospect, along a 14-kilometre mineralized corridor. The mineralized corridor occurs along a conductive trend, and this conductive trend continues into Falcon's Great Burnt copper property. The presence of mineral occurrences within ground adjacent to Falcon's Great Burnt copper property cannot be used as an indication of mineralization within Falcon's property itself.
Karim Rayani, chief executive officer, commented: "We are very excited to move forward on our first phase of exploration drilling at our Great Burnt copper project. The Great Burnt camp is quickly becoming recognized for its high-grade copper tenor demonstrated by Benton Resources Inc.'s recent successful drilling (see Benton Resources Inc.'s press release dated Jan. 30, 2024). Benton's success at Great Burnt and recent press releases from FireFly Metals Ltd. that disclose plans to advance the high-grade Green Bay copper-gold project in the Rambler camp have put the copper potential of VMS [volcanogenic massive sulphide] deposits in Newfoundland front and centre. The Green Bay copper-gold project hosts a mineral inventory that includes aggregate measured, indicated and inferred resources of 39.2 Mt [million tonnes] at 1.83 per cent Cu. We believe that Benton's recent success at Great Burnt is a testament to the untapped VMS potential of the Great Burnt area, and we are thrilled to hold an extensive strike extent of this unexplored, never-drilled horizon."
The Great Burnt copper property
The property is hosted within the Great Burnt greenstone belt (GBGB), which hosts massive sulphide deposits that have been interpreted as Besshi-type. These types of deposits generally occur as laterally extensive sheets of pyrrhotite- or pyrite-rich sulphide rock within mixed volcanic-sedimentary environments. Sulphide lenses can be several metres thick and extend for several kilometres. Besshi-type massive-sulphide deposits are generally copper dominant, commonly contain other lithophile elements like cobalt or lead, and can contain precious metals such as gold and silver. The property is also located four km west of the Crest Resources-Exploits Discovery joint venture project within the Exploits subzone. The Exploits subzone contains deep-seated gold-bearing structures of the Dog Bay-Appleton fault-GRUB line deformation corridor that contains the high-grade Keats gold zone of New Found Gold Corp.