BURG resumes drilling... Vancouver, Canada, June 8th, 2022 – Burin Gold Corp. (“Burin Gold” or the “Company”) is pleased to announce that drilling operations have recommenced at its Hickey’s Pond – Paradise Gold Project (“HPP Project”) on the Burin Peninsula in southeastern Newfoundland, after a hiatus for the spring breakup. In Q1/2022, the Company completed 22 diamond drill holes on the Hickey’s Pond showing, for a total of 3,777 m of diamond. Assay results for the first seven holes received were released on April 20th, 2022 and included a highlight of 16.0 m of 1.57 g/t Au. Assays for the remainder of the drilling completed during the winter program are pending.
The Company is fully funded for approximately 4,000 m of diamond drilling planned for this summer. The summer program will build on the first phase of drilling at Hickey’s Pond, with additional holes designed to further test the mineralised system, as well as drill test, for the first time, other high priority targets on the Company’s HPP Project.
David Clark, CEO of Burin Gold said: “The results received so far from our winter drilling program have demonstrated that the Hickey’s Pond showing is a significantly mineralised zone, with near-surface, wide intercepts of gold mineralisation. This next phase of drilling will both build on our results from earlier this year, as well as test some exciting targets that have never been drilled before. The Hickey’s Pond showing will need both systematic drilling to move it towards a mineral resource and scout drilling along-strike to test its overall footprint. We’re also excited about testing additional showings on the property that all have important surface alteration footprints and have never been drilled in the past. A significant intersection of gold mineralisation on any of these new targets would, along with Hickey’s Pond, demonstrate the district-scale potential of the property for multiple high-sulphidation epithermal deposits.”
Summer drilling program
The Company’s fully funded summer exploration program will comprise approximately 4,000 m of diamond drilling on the HPP Project. Approximately 2,000 m of drilling will be focused on development and scout drilling at and around the Hickey’s Pond showing, and another 2,000 m focused on the Tower showing. A map of the property is given in Figure 1, showing the known showings. The areas marked in red (Tower and Hickey’s Pond) will be drill-tested this summer. The area marked in grey blue (Strange and Bullwinkle) has been identified for drilling next winter when ground access will be easier.
The Tower showing is a large-footprint hydrothermal alteration system exposed on surface over approximately 500 m. It is open along strike in both directions: under a pond to the northeast and a glacial esker to the southwest. Work on the showing by previous explorers outlined three large boudins of epithermal quartz measuring up to 100 m in length and up to 75 m in width and a large alteration halo of quartz-sericite-pyrite schist. The Company’s own sampling on the showing has returned up to 0.9 g/t Au in grey epithermal quartz float adjacent to the hydrothermal boudins, on the edge of a showing-parallel linear bog where basal till sampling returned up to 0.125 g/t Au. The showing has never been drill tested before, despite its impressive size and width on surface, high-sulphidation epithermal alteration signature, and presence of gold-bearing mineralisation at surface.
This first phase of drilling at Tower will consist of a series of drill fences at 200 m spacings along strike designed to broadly test the subsurface under the surface showing for gold mineralisation and geochemical vectors towards the potential centres of hydrothermal fluid flow.
Figure 1: Plan map of Hickey's Pond - Paradise Gold Project. Thick black outline shows the property boundaries. The yellow stars show the locations of known showings on the Property. The areas outlined in red show the focus of the summer 2022 drill program, and the area outlined in grey blue has been identified for drilling winter 2022/2023. (Map datum: NAD83, Projection: UTM zone 21)
At Hickey’s Pond, drilling will focus both on continuing to test the continuity of the mineralisation tested to date as well as extending scout drilling to the northeast and southwest of the Hickey’s Pond knob. The overall geophysical signature of Hickey’s Pond is over 7 km in length, and to date only approximately 700 m has been drill tested by the Company. Both resource development drill holes and scout drill holes will be completed in the 2,000 m of diamond drilling planned for the Hickey’s Pond area.
Pipeline targets
The Bullwinkle-Strange corridor, located in the southwest of a 6 km trend of epithermal showings (the Paradise trend) in the western portion of the property, has been identified as a high priority follow-up target for drilling during the winter of 2022/2023. The Bullwinkle showing consists of parallel ridges of epithermal quartz approximately 200 m apart, with a central zone of historical gold-in-soil geochemistry, with an alteration footprint of approximately 1,000 m. The Strange showing, 1500 m along strike to the southwest of Bullwinkle is a small outcropping in a bog where historical rock chip samples have returned up to 1.66 g/t Au. The area between the two showings is swamp covered. Neither prospect has received any historical drilling. Reconnaissance work by Burin Gold crews this summer has shown that this prospect will be easier to drill in winter conditions, so this work program will be a follow-up to the summer program currently underway. The additional targets along the Paradise trend will be evaluated and ranked for future drilling.
Airborne geophysical survey update
Geotech Ltd. completed the airborne geophysical survey over the HPP Project on May 20th, 2022. Survey equipment failures and bad weather slowed production significantly. Data delivery of preliminary products is expected in the coming weeks and anomalies identified will be integrated into the drill targeting process as they are received.