TORONTO, Sept. 08, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Wesdome Gold Mines Ltd. (TSX: WDO) (“Wesdome” or the “Company”) today announces results from the initial sill development on the Falcon 7 Zone at the Company’s wholly-owned Eagle River Mine near Wawa, Ontario.
Falcon 7 Zone
The Falcon 7 Zone was discovered in 2019 and now initial sill development has been completed on the 622 and 635 levels in preparation for mining in Q4. Chip sampling and test holes during the initial development confirms earlier exploration drill results by returning high gold grades over continuous strike length (Figures 1 - 5). The 2020 mineral reserves for the Falcon 7 were 136,344 tonnes grading 19.7 g/t Au totalling 86,177 ounces. Expansion and definition drilling are ongoing.
Historically, mineralization of the Eagle River Mine has been hosted in the mine diorite; however, the Falcon 7 Zone is hosted in volcanic rocks west of the intrusion. Hence, the discovery and subsequent development of the Falcon 7 Zone is important to the Company as it highlights the prospectivity of the volcanic rocks both to the east and west to host additional gold mineralization beyond the currently existing footprint of the Eagle River Mine. Consequently, near-mine exploration is continuing and is focusing on the adjacent Falcon 300 Zone; further exploration work targets the westerly along strike extension of the Falcon structure where limited drilling has returned several encouraging results in volcanic rocks.
Highlights of the recent development are found below, detailed assay results are listed in Tables 1 and 2.
622 Level – Chip sampling yielded 54.3 grams of gold per tonne (g/t Au) (uncapped) and 37.9 g/t Au (capped at 125 g/t Au) over an average thickness of 2.1 metres (m) over a continuous strike length of 75.6 m.
- Sill 622-720-311 Line#L31: 178.5 g/t Au (99.6 g/t Au capped) over 2.0 m.
- Sill 622-720-311 Line #L03: 92.8 g/t Au (62.4 g/t Au capped) over 6.2 m.
635 Level – Chip sampling yielded 67.3 g/t Au (uncapped) and 34.3 g/t Au (capped) over an average thickness of 1.9 m over 61.0 m.
- Sill 635-720-L04W: 168.8 g/t Au (88.2 g/t Au capped) over 2.0 m.
- Sill 635-720-L03W: 265.6 g/t Au (71.2 g/t Au capped) over 1.5 m.
Mr. Duncan Middlemiss, President and CEO commented," We are pleased with the development of the Falcon 7 Zone that will bring to Eagle another high-grade mining front at a reserve grade of almost 20 g/t. We expect to start production activities in the 4th quarter and going forward, Falcon will comprise a significant portion of the mill feed at Eagle River. Further, the discovery and imminent production from the Falcon 7 Zone reaffirms the potential of the surrounding volcanic rocks to host sizeable deposits of gold mineralization and I remain encouraged with our ongoing surface exploration outside of the mine diorite.”
The stated goal of the Company is to increase production of the Eagle River Mine to approximately 100,000 oz per year. To achieve this goal consistently over the next years, operations within the mine need to be spread out so bottle necks can be avoided. The Falcon 7 Zone development is an important aspect of this operational planning as it is situated away from the main mining area at depth thereby providing a separate work area away from heavier mine traffic.
The underground development at Falcon on the western extent of the mine also provides an opportunity to target by drilling the structures west of the mine diorite in a region of the mine that has historically had very little attention. In the event of a successful exploration campaign the development in this area would provide easy access.
TECHNICAL DISCLOSURE
Samples are transported in sealed bags to the Eagle River Mine assay office in Wawa, Ontario. Samples are analyzed for gold using standard fire assay technique with gravimetric finish. The performance of the Wesdome Laboratory is monitored through the implementation of a quality assurance - quality control (QA-QC) program designed to follow industry best practices. Wesdome inserts blanks and certified reference standards into the sample sequence for quality control at the laboratory. The QA/QC procedure is described in more detail in the 2016 Technical Report filed on SEDAR on March 17, 2016
The technical content of this release has been compiled, reviewed, and approved by Michael Michaud, P.Geo., Vice President, Exploration of the Company and a "Qualified Person" as defined in National Instrument 43-101 -Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.