Great to see Beauce Gold Fields starting their exploration program on the newly discovered Ditton placer channel:
Patrick Levasseur, President and CEO of Beauce Gold Fields said, "The exploration of the Ditton gold placer channel and of the surrounding bedrock could lead to exciting gold discoveries," Mr Levasseur further stated. "We want to see if there is the potential for an economic placer gold deposit and, if it will provide us with more indications as to its bedrock source."
Image 1: Cross section of placer gold channel along Rang Dix looking north
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The Company will conduct 3 lines totalling 1km of Seismic refraction geophysics survey to accurately map the depth to competent bedrock of the Ditton placer channel. The objective will also be to validate the 1985 geophysics mapping of the channel by Cache Exploration along an axis following the Rang Dix road. The geophysics data will allow the Company to position the 50 geoprobe overburden drill holes throughout the channel to sample the glacial till for gold at depth to bedrock.
The bulk sampling will consist of 180 barrels (200 litres) of till collected from surface excavations throughout the channel with a concentrated focus on the Ditton sand quarry deposit. The samples will be processed through a gold trommel wash plant to create concentrates that will then be sent to a laboratory for further gold extraction via various separation by gravity methods.
The Ditton Placer Channel
The epicenter of the discovery is a cross section of the placer channel along Rang Dix road near the town of La Patrie in Ditton Township, Quebec. The channel is located 4 km east of the historical Mining Brook placer gold mine and 5 km west of the US New Hampshire border. It is also located 105 km south to the Company's Beauce Gold project in St-Simon-Les-Mine.
The insight that lead to the discovery was brought by a compiled analysis of the Company's exploration of the Ditton quarry (BGF press release January 20, 2022), prospector Pierre Paquette's gold sample data (BGF press release February 23, 2022) and from the study of 1980's historical exploration reports (GM42843).
Prospector Pierre Paquette first discovered gold in an operating sand quarry in Ditton Township. BGF follows this lead with a sampling program that recovered gold from every sample taken throughout the quarry. A study of the regional geology revealed that the quarry was an excavated pit of an Eastern lip of an exposed layer of a Tertiary placer channel.
In 1985, Cache Explorations undertook 36 km of geophysics throughout the Ditton & Chesham counties to study the placer gold occurrence surrounding the Mining Brook 19th century placer mines. The purpose of the seismic program was to define depths to bedrock and thickness of the glacial drifts, Quaternary overburden cover in order to interpret the substructure bedrock topography. The gold deposits were thought to be located in deep Tertiary channels were gold concentrations would be found deep at/or close to bedrock and at such depths that the glacial scouring would have missed by overriding such deep channels. A 4.98 km survey line along Rang Dix road identified 4 Tertiary channels. Churn drill holes were put down to the trough of the channels of which only one hole returned significant gold values. Churn drill hole 85-7 (GM42843) 400m west of the Ditton quarry intercepted a gold zone at 10.4m to 20.2m deep that returned 269 gold grains. Cache continued to focus on Mining Brook exploration and for reasons not know to the Company, did no follow-up work to the Rang Dix anomalies.
The potential size of the channel can be inferred by two studies commissioned by the Provincial government for the purpose of measuring surface sand and gravel deposits in Southern Quebec. According to the MERQ (Ministry of Natural Resources) the larger area (NE-SW) would be 1,800m long X 500m wide with an average depth of 5m. While that of UQAM University, the gravel deposits would be oriented more E-W and would measure 700m in length X 400m wide and an average depth of 5m. However, as implied by the Cache Exploration drill hole 87-7, the depth and the corresponding volumes of the channel would be significantly greater.
Potential for Lode Gold Discoveries
The gold particles from the Ditton sand quarry showed delicate angular shapes suggesting little transportation. A proximal source of the placer channel could be from the eroded Eastern flank of the valley wall. The bedrock lithology holds a contact point between volcanic and schists rock. Historical surveys indicated strong magnetic lineaments and fairly high magnetic geological formations favorable to hosting gold bearing quartz lenses.
The Bella Fault line is estimated to run along strike 1 km east of the placer channel where Cache Exploration in 1985 put down 3 diamond drill holes (DDH) along Rang Dix road to test a strong shear zone. The holes intersected andesites containing numerous quartz stringers mineralized with pyrite and containing much tourmaline. Of interest, in the drill log for DDH number S-2 states that visible gold was noted at 240 meters (GM42843). Cache did not complete the recommended follow-up drilling to test this anomaly.
Jean Bernard, B,Sc. Geo., is a qualified person as defined by NI 43-101 who has reviewed and approved the technical information presented in this release.
Non-brokered private placement
The Company is increasing the size of its previously announced May 20, 2022 non-brokered private placement of 5 million units to up to 6 million units for gross proceeds of up to approximately $360,000.00. All other terms thereof are not modified.