RENO, Nev., Sept. 15, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nevada Exploration Inc. (“NGE” or the “Company”) (TSX-V:NGE; OTCQB:NVDEF) is pleased to provide the drill results from the first hole of its 2021 core program at South Grass Valley, and to announce that based on these results the Company has significantly enlarged its land holdings at the project.
NGE reports:
- Lab assays confirm that SGVC012 intersected a major Carlin-type fluid pathway at the Company’s primary East Golden Gorge target located along the Water Canyon structural corridor;
- Specifically, SGVC012 intersected a 96-metre interval averaging 265 ppm arsenic associated with intense Calin-type alteration within the targeted Clm unit;
- This interval hosts the highest gold concentrations in the drill hole, which while subeconomic, validate NGE’s target concept that the Clm unit provided the dominant gold-bearing fluid pathway through this part of the district, as predicted by the Company’s geologic model;
- Building from SGVC012, NGE is excited to continue with the balance of its planned 10-hole program designed to provide the density of drill holes to test East Golden Gorge for a globally-significant Carlin-type deposit;
- NGE is presently in advanced discussions with drilling contractors with the technical capability to complete these relatively deep drill holes; and
- To secure the continued NNW projection of the Carlin-type mineral system NGE has discovered at South Grass Valley, the Company has located 12.5 square kilometres of new mineral claims, bringing the Company’s land holdings at the project to 70 square kilometres (17,000 acres)
Link to view news within interactive 3D VRIFY model (for best results, view in full screen):
https://vrify.com/decks/September-15-2021-press-release.
Discussing the results of SGVC012 and the Company’s plans, NGE CEO, Wade Hodges: ”As we’ve shared, the preliminary logging and XRF data from SGVC012 indicated that we are heading in the right direction in terms of validating our exploration concept - that the major high-angle structural features associated with the Water Canyon Structural corridor provided the primary control for the mineralized fluids into the district, and that the subsequent lateral fluid flow through the district was dominantly focused through the Clm unit - which is now supported by the assay results.
“Zooming out, it is important to highlight the scale and intensity of these features we’re seeing. As described in our last update, we have effectively found a geologic superhighway that has directed massive volumes of mineralized Carlin-type hydrothermal fluids laterally through the district. Beyond establishing thickness, when you consider that SGVC012 represented an approximately one kilometre step out from our last hole at this north end of the project, SGVC012 has also helped to establish the significant E-W width of this NNW-trending mineralization. With our current hole SGVC013, located three kilometers to the south, we’re now expecting to demonstrate its major N-S extent as well. In short, the scale of the Carlin-type mineral system we’ve discovered at South Grass Valley is consistent with what you need to source a globally-significant gold endowment.
“It is important, however, to recognize that East Golden Gorge still represents a large volume of bedrock to test for what are ultimately comparatively small deposits. As we’ve shared, we’re not betting on any single drill hole; rather we’re betting on testing the target with our planned 10-hole program designed based on what we know about the nearest Carlin-type deposits at Cortez Hills and Goldrush to the north. The results we’re seeing in this first drill hole confirm that our plan is working and that our target concept is valid. Our job now is to complete the balance of the program.
“Our unfortunate, lengthy and unplanned drilling stoppage has been the result of an industry-wide shortage of drillers with the experience to complete deep holes in challenging Carlin-type conditions. It has been frustrating, but this target and these holes are too important, and we’re only going to resume drilling once we secure a contractor with the technical expertise that gives us the best chance of completing our holes to their target depths. I’m pleased to report that we are in discussions with a number of qualified contractors, and we hope to share more on this soon.
“In the meantime, this break in drilling has given us a valuable opportunity to leverage our significantly improved understanding of the geology at South Grass Valley - compared to when we logged our first drill holes in 2018-2019 - to fine tune geologic contacts and other structural measurements across the project, and the results of this review are significantly improving the resolution of our geologic model. As we add more information with each phase of work, we’re pleased to continue publishing our geologic data for our stakeholders to review directly. In addition to providing core photos, we’ve also added the latest assay results to our South Grass Valley VRIFY model. We encourage everyone to use this interactive model to review the scale of the mineral system we’ve discovered at South Grass Valley, and to follow along as we continue our planned program.
“Lastly, reviewing the results from SGVC012 together with those of our other drill holes, it is clear that this Carlin-type mineral system we’ve discovered at South Grass Valley extends beyond the northern limit of our current drilling, consistent with our geophysical and geochemical datasets, which highlight the potential to discover additional mineralization along the NNW projection of the Water Canyon structural corridor. Recognizing the opportunity for this system to host multiple deposits, we are pleased to announce that we have significantly enlarged our claim holdings in this direction.”
With respect to the results of SGVC012 and the Company’s ongoing work, NGE also reports:
- While subeconomic (all values < 100 ppb), the gold concentrations in SGVC012 are closely associated with the highly anomalous arsenic hosted within the Carlin-type alteration seen in the targeted Clm unit. These results highlight the importance of the Clm unit in controlling the flow of mineralized fluids through the district, which further strengthens the Company’s exploration thesis at East Golden Gorge. The objective of NGE’s current drilling program is to continue to test the rest of the East Golden Gorge target volume for areas where the mineralized hydrothermal fluids encountered geologic features and conditions that forced the fluids to drop their gold budgets to form higher, potentially economic grades;
A graph accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/2098cd35-a045-4934-ba37-b2bec7caa090
- Early comparisons of the lab assay data to the XRF-derived data for SGVC012 confirm that the Company’s XRF workstation is well suited and well calibrated to measure a number of important pathfinder elements, as well as a large number of other elements used for discerning geologic units and alteration features - consistent with the results of NGE’s orientation program based on samples from earlier drilling. The company is pleased with the quality of the XRF-derived data, and expects its XRF workstation to continue to be an important source of near-time data to support its drilling decision making and logging well in advance of receiving lab assays;
- As part of NGE’s ongoing, iterative efforts to improve the resolution of its geologic model at South Grass Valley, the Company’s exploration team has used the pause in drilling to undertake a massive relogging initiative, revisiting all of the drill holes completed to date, with the objective of consistently applying the most up-to-date understanding of the project geology across all of the drill holes. Importantly, this also has included re-assaying a number of intervals from early holes to provide a complete and standardized near-total digestion analytical geochemistry dataset across the entire project to support consistent demarcation of contacts between geologic units, as well as to ensure like-with-like comparisons when using pathfinders to vector within units. This relogging exercise is nearing completion, and is already providing important geological and structural information to answer questions about the character of a number of district-scale fault and fold features that intersect along the Water Canyon structural corridor, together which define an architecture well suited to providing the conditions needed to concentrate gold mineralization at East Golden Gorge. NGE expects to leverage this refined geologic model to speed up the logging of its next drill holes and the integration of the resulting data into its geologic model, all of which are expected to improve the Company’s decision making as its current drilling program progresses; and
- SGVC012 assays for gold, arsenic, antimony, and mercury are now available for review within the Company’s South Grass Valley VRIFY model (view VRIFY Press Release at: https://vrify.com/decks/September-15-2021-press-release), and core photos for the entire hole are available at: https://www.nevadaexploration.com/_resources/news/nr-20210915-sgvc012-core-photos.pdf.
Upcoming Event
NGE is pleased to welcome its stakeholders to watch NGE President, James Buskard, present live at the September 2021 Metals Investor Forum:
Date: Thursday September 16, 2021
Session: Session 3 – John Kaiser, Kaiser Research Online
Time: 12:00
Free to Register: https://metalsinvestorforum.com/conferences/metals-investor-forum-1/
About Nevada Exploration Inc.