Drilling projects expand Hope Bay deposits in Canada’s north

Drilling at two gold projects in the Hope Bay greenstone belt in northwestern Nunavut is confirming previous resource estimates and suggesting possible extensions to known mineralized zones.

The drill campaign, launched by joint-venture partners Miramar Mining (MAE-T) and Cambiex (CBX-T), centres on the Boston and Doris deposits in the Hope Bay belt, which runs south from the eastern arm of Bathurst Inlet, about 350 km from Kugluktuk (formerly Coppermine). The two projects are part of a package Cambiex bought from BHP Minerals, the Canadian unit of Australian-based Broken Hill Proprietary (BHP-N).

At Boston, three drills are working from a 4.3-km decline, driven to a depth of 200 metres by BHP in 1997. The program at Boston is also a series of infill holes to establish measured and indicated resources.

Drilling from the decline is confirming the continuity of the deposit’s B2 Zone, where BHP’s earlier work outlined a resource of 4.2 million tonnes grading 12.2 grams gold per tonne.

Three recent holes indicated that a steeply plunging mineralized shoot in the B2 structure extends farther north than previously thought. Hole B248 intersected a 3.5-metre width grading 12.6 grams gold on the extension of the shoot, with B250 cutting 4.5 metres grading 13.3 grams and B251 encountering 25.1 grams over 5.4 metres.

Four other holes discovered a new shoot in the B2 vein system, extending to the south of the known limits of the B2 zone. Hole B253 found a 3.5-metre-wide mineralized intersection grading 13.7 grams per tonne; B254, 5.8 metres grading 12.8 grams; and B258, 1.5 metres averaging 10.2 grams. The best hole of the four, B259, cut a 2-metre length grading an average 148.7 grams per tonne. Drilling at the Doris project, near the