Nov 28 2016
Auryn Resources Inc. ("Auryn" or the "Company) is pleased to announce results from its 2016 drill and boulder-sampling programs from its Committee Bay gold project located in Nunavut, Canada. Auryn successfully intersected gold in the majority of the RAB holes drilled across a set of east-west trending structures at Anuri that were the primary focus of the 2016 drill program. Highlights from the drilling include; 9.14 meters at 1.04g/t Au, 7.62m @ 1.05g/t, and 3.05m @ 2g/t Au (see Figure 1). The structure intersected is interpreted by Auryn to be a secondary structure based on the discovery of a new high-grade boulder train at Anuri that has a source along a prominent regional north-south trending fault zone adjacent to the 2016 drilling area (see Figure 1). The top 5 samples from the new boulder train are as follows: 45.9g/t Au, 41.5g/t Au, 33.3g/t Au, 14.55g/t Au, and 12.65g/t Au.
Shawn Wallace, President and CEO stated, "The progress at the Committee Bay project achieved over the last two years has been significant. We have completed extensive surface work over 85% of the nearly 300km long greenstone belt and importantly have drastically reduced drill costs. Our 2016 RAB drill campaign was limited to 2 target areas in the southwest of the project identified during the limited 2015 program; however, based on our 2016 surface work, we have properly defined 17 high priority drill ready targets across the belt."
RAB Drilling Results:
The RAB drilling undertaken this year successfully intersected gold-bearing structures underneath till cover validating our approach to target the source rock of gold-in-till anomalies and mineralized boulder trains. The program at the Anuri prospect targeted an east-west structure where gold mineralization was encountered consistently throughout the drill holes. The remaining unreleased highlights from this program are listed below in Table 1 with the complete drill results from the remainder of the Anuri drilling presented in Appendix A.
Table 1: Highlights from remaining 2016 RAB drill holes:
Boulder Sampling results:
The boulder sampling program was designed to aid in developing high-grade drill targets for 2017 by screening prospective boulder trains identified in high-resolution drone imagery. This program focused on certain areas within the Anuri and Three Bluffs corridors, targeting only eight discrete boulder trains that represent only a fraction of those identified across the belt (see Figure 2). Of the boulder trains sampled, two were identified as containing high-grade gold values, one at Anuri and the other, referred to as Ridge, located in the proximity of the Three Bluffs deposit.
Table 2 - High-grade boulders above 2g/t gold sampled from the Anuri boulder train
The newly identified high-grade boulder train at the Anuri prospect has demonstrated a source area to be along a major N-S fault zone that was not drill tested during the 2016 summer RAB drilling program (see Figure 2). This boulder train is 2.6 km long with the 112 samples taken from this train averaging 2.43g/t Au. The total strike length of the north south oriented structure that has the potential to be gold bearing based on regional till sampling and boulder train sampling, is approximately 8 km and will be drill tested during the 2017 summer exploration program.
Table 3 - High-grade boulders above 2g/t gold sampled from Three Bluffs boulder trains
The newly identified boulder train at the Ridge prospect demonstrates the potential for additional high-grade discoveries within the Three Bluffs deposit region. The Ridge prospect is undrilled and is one of 17 targets that is planned to be tested during a 2017 summer RAB drill program. In addition, boulder samples taken from the Prospector and Avinngaq prospects demonstrate the potential for multiple sources of gold mineralization in a subtle 20 km long north south trending structural corridor that was defined from a 2016 high resolution magnetics and EM airborne geophysics survey (Fig 1).
Auryn COO & Chief Geologist Michael Henrichsen commented, "The Committee Bay Greenstone Belt remains a singular opportunity for the potential of multiple high grade discoveries. Our innovative approach over the last 2 years has led us to not only lower costs in the Arctic but to a develop the most robust targets across the entire belt with the largest gold signatures that we look forward to drilling in 2017".