Meliadine West reveals new zone

Stepout drilling at the Meliadine West gold project has led to the discovery of new mineralization west of the Tiriganiaq zone.

Situated near Rankin Inlet, Nunavut, Meliadine West is a joint venture among WMC of Australia, with 56%, Comaplex Minerals (CMF-T), with 22%, and Cumberland Resources (CBD-T), with 22%. The minority stakeholders have their interest carried to production.

Since 1995, WMC has invested more than $44 million in the project, some of which was used to finance more than 125,000 metres of diamond drilling. Most of this was spent on the Tiriganiaq zone, the largest of four closely spaced deposits and host to two-thirds of the combined resource.

This past year, a 5,000-metre program was carried out to tighten drill spacings in the Tiriganiaq zone and follow up a separate prospect and coincident geophysical anomaly to the west. The five stepout holes returned:

– 8.52 grams gold per tonne over 11.43 metres;

– 4.87 grams over 12.1 metres;

– 13.23 grams over 1.98 metres; and

– 9.15 grams over 5.55 metres.

Drilling suggests that the zone strikes for 600 metres in length at depths greater than 350 vertical metres. This is consistent with a hole drilled in 1997, which intersected high-grade mineralization at a depth of 580 metres.

Meanwhile, infill drilling in Tiriganiaq proper suggests that mineralization in the subparallel 1100 and 1000 high-grade zones is more continuous than previously thought. However, it also confirmed the discontinuous nature of the lower-grade 1050 and 1150 zones.

WMC has retained MRDI Engineering as a consultant and expects to wrap up studies of the project by the second quarter of 2001.

At last report, combined resources at Meliadine West stood at 23.6 million tonnes grading 8.5 grams gold per tonne. Although the resource is classified as inferred, it excludes results from infill (as well as stepout) drilling in 1999 and 2000.