Good volume today ........ but people dumping shares at lower prices ...... tax loss selling perhaps ....
Maybe LVX will bring out some decent drill results from the old Leviathan gold mine in the next couple weeks ...... maybe not.
Bought back the 35,000 shares I sold a few days ago at $0.185, $0.175 and more at $0.18 late in the day. .... Ya pays yer money, ya takes yer chances.
October 7 2021 news release .....
LEVIATHAN GOLD LTD. ANNOUNCES THE INITIATION OF DRILLING AT THE HISTORIC LEVIATHAN MINE, TIMOR PROPERTY
Leviathan Gold Ltd. has commenced drilling at the historic Leviathan mine within the company's Timor property. This initial phase of work, which is expected to comprise at least 3,000 metres of diamond drilling, has been designed to target strike and depth projections of known high-grade gold mineralization in underground mine workings understood to have been abandoned in 1905. Recorded historic production for the Leviathan mine -- itself an amalgam of closely adjacent shafts and underground workings -- is 181,000 tonnes for 67,511 ounces of gold at a grade of 11.4 grams per tonne gold.
Compilation and review of historic mining records and plans together with modern fieldwork by Leviathan's geological team suggest that gold mineralization at the historic Leviathan mine is open along strike and at depth -- presenting clear drill targets immediately beneath abandoned mine workings, including areas underground development drives that were never fully exploited. These targets occur from depths as shallow as about 70 metres.
Mineralization at the Leviathan mine is known to occur as quartz veins, stockworks and spurs within a broad north-south-trending fault system, itself comprising numerous individual faults. Where mineralized, these are locally termed reefs. By 1862 approximately 90 such reefs were reportedly known in the area of Leviathan mine, with production records suggesting that such occurrences produced more than an ounce of gold per tonne.
Writing in 1913 -- subsequent to the closure of the Leviathan mine -- the Geological Survey of Victoria observed: "From the surface to 240 feet the Old Leviathan averaged for a long time one ounce per ton and the ore was 10 feet to 20 feet wide. At no point lower than 300 feet has this line been worked. The 960-foot level, the next level at which the Old Leviathan reef formation was cut, shows a splendid quartz reef with encouraging prospects, and going strongly underfoot south. The New reef in the 960-foot level warrants further exploiting and this should be done if ever the mine is again worked."
Within the area contemplated by current drilling, repeated parallel to subparallel reef targets extend over an area of at least 130 metres laterally and in excess of 750 metres of strike. Preliminary indications are that this fault system persists for several kilometres to the north of the current target, and that parallel systems appear to exist to both its east and its west. These occurrences will be reported on in due course.
Hardrock gold mineralization in the area of Leviathan mine furthermore appears to have been a significant source for the rich alluvial gold deposits that extend for kilometres downstream of the Leviathan mine in an area known as the Chinaman's Flat lead -- the scene of a major gold rush in the 1850s. At this time about 30,000 diggers were reportedly engaged in mining on the lead, with reports suggesting an average yield for the lead of four ounces gold to the load (or approximately 163 grams of gold per cubic metre) and that grades in many shafts (in the alluvial material) ranged from two kilograms to five kilograms gold per cubic metre.
Leviathan's current drill targets and provisional drill locations are shown in images on the company's website, oblique underground target projections in other images on the company's website, and site photographs illustrating the surface expression of the Leviathan reefs in more images on the company's website. It is understood that historic operation of the Leviathan mine ceased due to the inability of the mining, metallurgical and pumping techniques of the day to perform economically at the required depths.
Leviathan Gold chief executive officer Luke Norman remarked: "We are very excited to be commencing drilling works at the old Leviathan mine, our namesake target. Since completing the spinout our technical and permitting team has been working diligently to gain the necessary permits and access to drill these exciting targets. Compilation and review of historic records by Leviathan's geological team in conjunction with new fieldwork suggest that historic mining ceased at relatively shallow levels, leaving multiple, stacked high-grade ore shoots open to depth and along strike. Our plan is to systematically test these features via modern drilling and assaying techniques, confirming their grades and widths, while at the same time continuing to assemble targeting information on what appear to be further reef occurrences parallel to and along strike from the Leviathan mine."
About Avoca and Timor
The Victorian goldfields are one of the world's major gold provinces, with recorded historic production in excess of 2,500 tonnes -- or over 80 million ounces -- of gold since their discovery in 1851. The Avoca and Timor projects comprise 388 square kilometres of exploration tenements within these goldfields, approximately 180 kilometres northwest of the state capital of Melbourne. The projects are well served by modern infrastructure, are easily accessible via paved roads, and fall less than 100 kilometres from the regional cities of Bendigo and Ballarat, both long-established centres of mining services and expertise.
The projects are located within an area of the Victorian goldfields, the Golden Triangle, that is home to large-scale gold deposits with long and very prominent histories of production such as those at Ballarat, Bendigo and Castlemaine. More recently, major discoveries have also been made at the Fosterville gold mine near Bendigo (operated by Kirkland Lake Gold), which boasts reserves of 1.70 million ounces at an average grade of 23.1 g/t Au, including 1.16 million ounces at an average grade of 61.2 g/t Au. Within the area being explored by Leviathan Gold, hundreds of small historical gold mines are known to have existed within a 50-kilometre radius of Avoca and Timor.
The Avoca and Timor projects were the subject of historical mining between the 1850s and the early 1900s, during which era operations targeted so-called alluvial and deep lead gold occurrences -- buried secondary auriferous riverbed deposits -- as well as primary vein-hosted mineralization developed via shaft and underground stoping methods. Such operations reportedly produced about 1.3 million ounces of gold in the Avoca and Timor project areas alone, the majority of this arising from alluvial and deep lead mining -- a function of the richness of the alluvial mineralization around Maryborough, so great that it eclipsed the importance of reef mining. As such, little capital was available for deep hardrock development. The mining, water removal and ore processing methods of the day were rudimentary, such that only isolated extraction of shallow, near-surface, visible, high-grade mineralization was possible, resulting in only very selective and discontinuous mining. Over 50 such gold occurrences are known within the projects, and, despite this prodigious endowment, no systematic exploration of the projects has occurred. With only limited exploration work having been recorded since the First World War, numerous targets to test and mineralization potentially open to depth at most of these, a rare opportunity exists for Leviathan to pursue a consolidated approach in the exploration of near-surface mineralization using modern drilling, geochemical and geophysical techniques.
Historical records are not historical resource estimates, but instead are official government records of gold production from individual mines. Historical production records do not carry a comparable confidence level with a current mineral resource estimate reported in accordance with Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum standards for resource estimation and should not be treated as such. Leviathan does not treat historical production records as indicators of a current mineral resource or mineral reserve. The information relating to historical gold mines has not been independently verified by the qualified person and such information is not necessarily indicative of mineralization on the properties that are the subject of this press release.
Comparable projects
Leviathan considers the Currighanalt project in Northern Ireland to be potentially similar in terms of its geology to the Avoca and Timor projects. In 2018, Dalradian Resources Inc. defined measured and indicated mineral resources of 6.34 million tonnes at a grade of 15.01 g/t Au for 3.06 million ounces of gold and inferred mineral resources of 7.72 million tonnes at a grade of 12.24 g/t Au for 3.04 million ounces of gold. The Currighanalt project, which is described as a high-grade orogenic gold deposit characterized by a series of west-northwest-trending, moderately to steeply dipping, stacked quartz-carbonate-sulphide veins and arrays of narrow and short extension veinlets, is hosted by rocks of similar lithology and age to those found at Avoca and Timor.
Future work programs
There are over 30 historical gold workings within the Avoca project area, all of which require additional mapping, surface sampling and drill testing to assess their potential and on which the company intends to report on a continuing basis. The highest priority targets include:
- Pyrenees reefs: 16,199 tons mined for 16,602 ounces of gold to a depth of 130 metres at an average recovered grade of 32 g/t Au, worked from 1860 to 1912; mineralized shoots per historic underground mine plans;
- Excelsior reef: 13,200 tons mined for 9,260 ounces of gold to a depth of 100 metres at an average recovered grade of 22 g/t Au, worked from 1909 to 1915; mineralized shoots per historic underground mine plans;
- Vale's reefs: 1,444 tons mined for 1,388 ounces of gold to a depth of 52 metres at an average recovered grade of 29.4 g/t Au, worked from 1865 to 1883;
- Monte Christo reefs: 2,795 tons mined for 937 ounces of gold to a depth of 30 metres at an average recovered grade of 10.3 g/t Au, worked from 1872 to 1877.
The Timor project lies immediately east of the Avoca project and hosts numerous hardrock and alluvial gold deposits as evidenced by the extent of historic workings, of which approximately 20 hardrock workings can be considered to have been significant producers. The highest-priority targets include:
- Shaw's reef: 16,881 tons mined for 12,623 ounces of gold to a depth 130 metres at an average recovered grade of 22.9 g/t Au, worked from 1883 to 1891. Along strike of this fault zone, arsenopyrite and stibnite mineralization is recorded in association with the gold mineralization indicating possible epizonal Fosterville-style gold mineralization.
The Leviathan group of mines and Shaw's reef both lie on separate large regional north-south structures known to occur for tens of kilometres associated with hardrock workings over their length. Neither of these structures have witnessed significant drilling. These two mineralized structures will be a near-term focus for exploration within the projects. Modern core orientation techniques, which provide further understanding the structural controls on mineralization, will be systematically applied during this program.
Qualified person and data verification
The technical content of this news release has been reviewed, verified and approved by Keith Whitehouse, AusIMM (CP), exploration manager of Leviathan Gold (Australia) Pty. Ltd., a qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.