Hoyle Township properties showing further promise

Both Pentland Firth Ventures (TSE) and Black Hawk Mining (TSE) report encouraging results on properties in Hoyle Twp., Ont., just east of Timmins.

Pentland is expanding the resource at its former-producing property, the Marlhill mine. And in the southern part of the township, Pentland and Black Hawk have adjacent exploration properties that provided promising results in 1995.

Pentland has been testing the M-1 vein, one of eight on its Marlhill property, for much of the past year. Recent drilling has extended the known strike length of the vein to about 800 metres from the 230 metres that had been tested up to January 1995.

The company has released results from three of the drill holes on the strike extensions of the M-1 vein. On the vein’s northwestern end (about 80 metres along strike from the closest mine workings), one hole intersected 1.6 metres grading 8.2 grams gold per tonne at about 90 metres vertical depth. Included in the intersection was a short (0.4-metre) interval grading 19.5 grams per tonne.

Another hole, drilled 60 metres southeast of the nearest mine workings, cut 2.3 metres with an average gold grade of 15.1 grams per tonne. The intersection, 67 metres deep, also contained a 0.4-metre interval grading 29.8 grams per tonne.

A third hole, collared farther east, encountered mineralization 122 metres below surface. A 1.5-metre length showed an average gold grade of 6.9 grams per tonne, with higher-grade intervals.

Two holes drilled last fall intersected the M-1 vein below a 300-metre vertical depth, providing Pentland with strong evidence that the mineralization persists at depth (T.N.M., Nov. 27/95). The holes intersected 12.9 metres grading 7.5 grams gold per tonne and 10 metres grading 3.77 grams per tonne, both with higher-grade intervals.

Shared vein system

Pentland’s Schumacher property and Black Hawk’s Vogel property, to the east, share a vein system that strikes roughly eastward. Five mineralized structures — V-1 through V-5 — are already known, and another may have been unearthed in Black Hawk’s latest drilling.

Pentland’s newly released results from the Schumacher property show mineralized intersections in vein structures V-1 through V-4. One hole encountered the V-1 zone at vertical depths of between 35 and 82 metres, encountering grades as high as 65 grams gold per tonne over short intervals. The average grade over a 69.6-metre core length containing all the mineralized intervals was 1.7 grams, and Pentland considers the mineralization to be potentially exploitable by open-pit methods.

Similarly narrow veins encountered in another hole at 176 metres vertical depth are believed to be part of the V-2 or V-3 mineralized zone. Narrow intersections featured gold grades as high as 15 grams per tonne over 0.5 metre. Other intersections, at depths of 180 to 320 metres, were similar in size and form, with grades ranging up to 34.3 grams per tonne.

Pentland Firth would probably look at narrow-vein, underground methods to mine the deeper veins.

New mineralized zone

Black Hawk may have intersected a new mineralized zone in two recent drill holes, which intersected 2.1 metres grading 5.3 grams gold per tonne and 3.2 metres grading 3.1 grams. The two holes were on section lines 635 metres apart, and the western intersection was at a substantially shallower depth than the eastern one.

Other recent Black Hawk drill holes intersected: 3 metres grading 5.7 grams gold per tonne on the V-1 zone; two separate 2-metre intersections on the V-2, grading 3.4 grams and 10.7 grams; a 2.5-metre intersection on the V-4 structure grading 7.1 grams; and 2 metres grading 6.5 grams on the V-5 zone. All these intersections contained higher-grade intervals ranging up to 28 grams gold per tonne.

Black Hawk plans to carry out bulk-sampling on the property and has started design studies for underground work to provide the bulk sample. It has also acquired a land package, the Hollinsworth property, immediately south of its Vogel property.