Third high-grade centre found at Hope Bay

Vancouver — An ongoing drill program over the Hope Bay gold project in Nunavut continues to cut new zones of mineralization for partners Miramar Mining (MAE-T) and Hope Bay Gold (HGC-T).

“The discovery of another mineralized zone at Madrid, in addition to the Naartok Zone discovered earlier this year, confirms the prospectivity of the area,” says Tony Walsh, Miramar’s president.

Dubbed Suluk, the new zone lies southeast of Naartok, along the same structural zone. To date, three historic BHP (BHP-N) holes and 14 new holes have tested the discovery. The latest results from eight of the holes confirm the promise of Suluk. Highlights include:

• Hole 148 — 19.4 metres grading 15.6 grams gold per tonne;
• Hole 154 — 3.5 metres grading 36.2 grams gold; and
• Hole 155 — 6.7 metres grading 11.8 grams gold.

“These intercepts indicate potential for the development of a significant mineralized zone at Suluk,” says David Fennell, Hope Bay’s CEO.

Drilling to date indicates that the main structural zone in the Madrid-Patch Lake area is a significant mineralized trend. Mineralized occurrences have been identified over an 8-km strike length. The best results lie in the northern 1.5-km portion of the trend.

According to the partners, Naartok and Suluk could mark the development of a third high-grade area. The other two deposits, Boston and Doris, have measured and indicated resources of 2.46 million tonnes grading 16.9 grams gold, plus an inferred resource of 1.07 million tonnes grading 16.8 grams gold.

At Suluk, three parallel mineralized horizons have been traced for 350 metres along strike. They dip 80 to the west and show similar traits to Naartok, including silicification, quartz stockwork veining and pyrite within a broader sericite-dolomite alteration halo. Gold mineralization is associated with brecciated, silicified and sulphidized mafic-to-ultramafic volcanic rocks. Higher gold values are associated with altered rocks with greater than 5% pyrite.

Ongoing drilling is aimed at outlining the dimensions of the mineralization.

Miramar and Hope Bay are equal partners on the project and control most of the 80-km-long Archean greenstone belt.