Monarch hits high-grade gold at McKenzie Break

Monarch Gold (TSX: MQR) has reported high-grade drill results from the central part of its wholly-owned McKenzie Break gold project, 35 km north of Val-d’Or, Quebec.

Highlights from the drill program include drill hole 20-255, which intersected 14 metres grading 13.95 grams gold per tonne starting from 301 metres downhole, including 0.5 metre grading 311 grams gold, 1 metre grading 25.4 grams gold, and 1 metre grading 15.1 grams gold.

“The project continues to return impressive gold assays and new gold zones,” Jean-Mark Lacoste, Monarch’s president and CEO, said in an interview. “This is the third result in a row that confirms a high-grade mineralized zone on this part of the property, and we keep on adding metres and metres of high-grade material outside the initial discovery.”

Hole 20-255 was drilled within 50 metres of two drill holes the company completed last year. Hole 19-251, 50 metres to the northeast of 20-255, assayed 6 metres of 7.04 grams gold, including 1 metre of 25.92 grams gold, while drill hole 19-250, 50 metres to the east, returned 11 metres of 10.50 grams gold.

The results from drill hole 20-255, together with 19-250 and 19-25, confirm the continuity of the mineralized zone and the increase in grade towards the southeast, Lacoste added.

The newly defined mineralized zone is located approximately 100 metres east of the project’s defined resource.

The project’s pit-constrained mineral resource stands at 939,860 tonnes grading 1.59 grams gold for 48,133 contained oz. gold in the indicated category and 304,677 tonnes grading 1.52 grams gold for 14,897 oz. gold of inferred resources. Both used a cutoff grade of 0.52 gram gold per tonne.
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The underground zone contains indicated resources of 281,739 tonnes grading 5.9 grams gold for 53,448 oz. gold and inferred resources of 270,103 tonnes grading 5.66 grams gold for 49,130 oz. gold, both at a cutoff grade of 3.5 grams gold.

“Right from the beginning we took a very surgical approach to drilling on the property, progressing at around 2,000 metres to 4,000 metres at a time and following the grade trend in a cautious manner,” Lacoste said. “So far, this approach has proved very fruitful.”

The 1,896-metre four-hole drill campaign, which started in March and was suspended due to the Covid-19 pandemic, was completed in May. All four holes, Lacoste noted, intersected gold mineralization at the targeted depth, with most containing visible gold.

Drill hole 20-253 intersected 7 metres grading 5.34 grams gold starting from 352 metres, including 1 metre of 23.6 grams gold and 0.7 metre of 14.35 grams gold. This hole was drilled 50 metres southwest of drill hole 19-249, which was drilled last year and assayed 14 metres of 5.28 grams gold. The latest hole was also drilled about 50 metres southeast of drill hole 19-241 which cut 2 metres of 26.78 grams gold last year.

The triangulation of these holes, Lacoste said, combined with the results released today from drill hole 20-255, has confirmed that the gold mineralization trend is still open to the south and southeast.

“We know that the gold mineralized zones are getting thicker and richer as we head down,” Lacoste said, “and we’ve probably expanded these zones by up to 200 metres to 300 metres over the past year or so.”

The remaining two holes, 20-252 and 20-254, he added, confirmed the presence of gold mineralization throughout the central part of the property. Drill hole 20-252 returned 1 metre grading 2.21 grams gold from 450 metres downhole, and 20-254 returned 1 metre grading 2.14 grams gold from 476 metres downhole.

The company is now planning another drill program to continue to expand and define the outer limits of the mineralized zone, and is slated to begin at the end of August.

“The goal is to keep going on the outskirts and define the extension of this rich gold zone to add to our resource model,” Lacoste said. “When we find that we’ve finished delineating the zone, we will conduct a resource estimate, possibly in the spring of 2021, followed by a preliminary economic assessment in the fall.”

At press time in Toronto, Monarch was trading at 53¢ per share within a 52-week trading range of 11¢ and 55¢.

The company has around 294 million common shares outstanding for a $156-million market capitalization.