Partners expand work plan at Hope Bay

Encouraged by several new showings, Partners Hope Bay Gold (HGC-T) and Miramar Mining (MAE-T) have committed another $2.9 million to a second phase of work at the Hope Bay gold project in Nunavut.

“The increase in budget is warranted by the results from the Madrid area, where the Naartok and other zones have been returning encouraging intercepts, as well as the results from the Boston South area, where additional high-grade mineralization has been defined," says David Fennell, Hope Bay’s CEO.

So far this year, the partners have spent $10 million on sinking about 21,500 metres of core at the property. Another 8,000 metres are planned for the second phase of drilling, which will run through June.

“The majority of this additional meterage is focused in the Madrid area, where the discovery of a significant mineralized trend that includes the Naartok zone clearly warrants continued drilling, and in the Boston South area where we have successfully extended the mineralization,” says Tony Walsh, Miramar’s president.

For the time being, the companies have deferred underground work at Boston and drilling at Doris North. Those programs will need to be carried out at as part of a feasibility study.

Meanwhile, seven holes (totalling 1,423 metres) have recently been sunk on the Doris Connector, which runs about 500 metres between the Doris Central and Doris North resource areas. The holes targeted the C2 vein, which runs parallel to, and about 30 metres east of, the Lakeshore vein.

Highlights from the holes are:

• Hole 409 — 8.4 metres (true width) grading 15.4 grams gold per tonne;
• Hole 412 — 9.4 metres grading 19 grams gold; and
• Hole 413 — 4.2 metres grading 10.6 grams gold.

The results confirm the presence of a shallow, high-grade shoot in the C2 vein in Doris Connector. Any high-grade resources there could be accessed from a decline driven to access Doris Central. Mineralization at Doris Connector seems to be localized around where the C2 vein intersects with a steep, westerly dipping shear zone, as well as in proximity to a sub-horizontal, post-veining, altered mafic dyke. Lakeshore vein intercepts in the Doris Connector area generally run at lower grades. However, one high-grade intercept in hole 412 averaged 23.8 grams over a 1.8-metre true width.

At Boston South, 30 holes (totalling 8,138 metres) have been completed. Twenty-four of them targeted the B2 zone. Highlights include:

• Hole 265A — 4.4 metres grading 11 grams gold;
• Hole 281 — 3.5 metres grading 14.5 grams gold;
• Hole 285 — 8.9 metres grading 13.2 grams gold, including 4.1 metres of 21.2 grams; and
• Hole 286A — 3.5 metres grading 16.5 grams gold.

The holes extend the high-grade mineralization to more than 225 metres south of the Boston decline. Mineralization remains open along strike and at depth. The high-grade mineralization occurs in sub-parallel and en-echelon lenses hosted by strongly carbonate and sericite-altered basalt. Drilling continues.

Two holes, collared at the north end of the Boston deposit, successfully determined the orientation of a fault that truncates the deposit. The holes will help to determine the fault offset and direction of future exploration in the area.

An exploration program of reverse-circulation drilling has targeted the Miksa, Domani, Chicago, Kamik and Amarok areas. At Miksa, Domani and Chicago, soil and altered rock samples yielded anomalous gold. Follow-up core drilling at Miksa failed to cut economic gold values. More mapping and sampling is planned. Silver values at Chicago ranged up to 28 grams over 10.6 metres, but no economic intersections were cut.