Pentland tests Montclerg

An 8-hole drilling program on the Pipestone Lake fault, northeast of Timmins, has returned results that operator Pentland Firth Ventures (PFO-T) describes as “encouraging.”

The drill program, mounted on the Montclerg property currently held by Prospectors Alliance (PALL-C), is part of an option deal allowing Pentland to earn full ownership of Montclerg. Prospectors Alliance retains a net smelter return at a rate varying from 1.5% to 2.5% depending on the gold price.

The eight holes, which comprised 1,644 metres of drilling, tested two known zones of mineralization: CMX, which is a relatively small, high-grade prospect, and Montclerg, which is larger and low-grade.

The mineralization in the CMX zone occurs in quartz-carbonate veins that crosscut three rock types: strongly altered metasedimentary rocks, ultramafic volcanics, and felsic porphyry, which intrudes the volcanics and sediments. The veins are developed most strongly near the contacts between the rock units.

Three of Pentland’s drill holes intersected broad zones with gold concentrations of more than 0.3 gram per tonne, which generally coincided with swarms of quartz-carbonate veins. Areas with disseminated arsenopyrite carried the best grades, ranging from 1 to 4.4 grams per tonne.

A fourth hole was abandoned, at a depth of 36 metres, when it encountered only a late-stage diabase dyke.

In the nearby Montclerg zone, Pentland drilled four holes into the host sequence of flows and fragmental rocks. All four intersected multiple zones of gold mineralization, with grades that generally exceeded 1 gram per tonne only over intervals of 1 or 2 metres at a time. The highest-grade intersection was a 3-metre interval that returned 6.2 grams, and the widest, 8.6 metres that returned 2 grams.

Previous drilling, in 1985, showed that gold in the Montclerg zone is carried in zones of disseminated fine-grained pyrite and arsenopyrite, in altered volcanic rocks. Mineralized intervals in the four new drill holes were similar to the known mineralization.

The 1985 drilling had defined a resource of 408,000 tonnes grading 4.5 grams gold per tonne in the Montclerg zone. The drill results did not increase the resource, but they are sufficient to keep Pentland on the property for another phase of drilling.