Sabina Silver finds new gold zone at Goose Lake deposit

Summer drilling at the Back River project in Nunavut has uncovered a new zone of high-grade mineralization about 2,000 metres away from the Goose Lake deposit, Sabina Silver (SBB-V, SBBFF-O) reports.

The new Echo zone returned 8.17 grams gold per tonne over 15.15 metres, including 9 grams gold over 13.20 metres in Hole 09GSE26.

The Back River project includes the Goose Lake gold deposit, which contains 1.57 million tonnes grading 11.9 grams gold per tonne (for 603,000 ounces of gold) in the indicated category. The Goose Lake deposit has 1.83 million tonnes grading 9.2 grams gold for contained gold of 295,000 ounces in the inferred category.

Sabina Silver acquired the Back River project in June. The summer drilling campaign started in July and concentrated on ground around Goose Lake to test priority targets that had geophysical and geological similarities with the Goose Lake deposit. The company maintains that after sampling it was “immediately apparent that the Echo zone displayed the same geological, structural and mineralization style” as Goose Lake.

The Echo Zone lies in a broad zone of thick folded iron formation units that have been strongly altered to the extent that the magnetic signature of the iron formation has been washed out. The large 2 by 3 km target area has had no prior drilling.

The zone remains open in all directions with all holes targeting mineralization no deeper than 150 meters from surface, offering open pit opportunities.

Assay results for three of the six holes drilled in the zone are now in. Highlights include 8.57 grams gold per tonne over 6.05 metres in hole 09GSE08. Hole 09GSE09, which was drilled about 75 meters below hole 09GSE08, returned 5.22 grams gold per tonne over 8.60 meters, including 8.29 grams gold over 4.95 metres.

Hole 09GSE26, 50 meters to the east and slightly deeper than hole 09GSE09, returned 8.17 grams gold per tonne over 15.15 meters including 9 grams gold per tonne over 13.20 meters.

The Back River assets consist of two main parts, the original Back River property hosting the George and Goose Lake gold deposits and a recent new project area, the Wishbone project. The Back River gold deposits contain a total resource of 1.19 million indicated ounces of gold and 1.16 million inferred ounces of gold at an average grade of 10 grams per tonne and are near the company’s Hackett River project. Goose Lake is about 80 km southeast of Hackett River while George is about 40 km to the southeast.

The Wishbone property covers a large portion of the Hackett River Greenstone Belt and hosts Sabina’s Hackett River project as well as other smaller base and precious metal deposits. The combined properties total about 3,000 sq km and cover a largely unexplored highly prospective greenstone belt.

Hackett River, one of the largest undeveloped silver-zinc volcanic massive sulphide deposits of its type in the world, is about 75 km from the proposed Bathurst Inlet port. The nearby Bathurst Inlet community is about 500 km northeast of Yellowknife.

The project has an indicated resource of 43 million tonnes grading 144 grams silver per tonne, 4.65% zinc, 0.42% copper, 0.64% lead and 0.30 gram gold per tonne, and an inferred open resource totalling 14.6 million tonnes grading 136 grams silver, 4.46% zinc, 0.31% copper, 0.57% lead and 0.31 gram gold.

As of June 30 Sabina had $45 million in cash and marketable securities.

In Toronto at press-time Sabina was trading at 94¢ per share. The company has a 52-week trading range of 35.5¢-$1.21 per share and has 109.7 million shares outstanding.