Nevada Exploration Inc. (NGE) is happy to announce the results of its infill borehole program at the South Grass Valley Project where a 1,000 x 4,000 m Carlin-type Gold Deposit (CTGD) target has been identified.
It is defined by a focused zone of enriched gold in groundwater coincident with the projected intersection of favorable lower-plate host rocks and a main high-angle fault corridor. With solid support for mineralization along the projected fault corridor, NGE is getting set for a deeper drilling program to test for the structural controls of the possibly large system.
Results of infill borehole program (Image credit: Nevada Exploration Inc.)
NGE’s 100% owned 22 km2 South Grass Valley Project is situated at the southern end of Grass Valley, the covered valley directly south of Barrick’s Cortez complex (Pipeline, Cortez Hills, and Goldrush), one of the largest and lowest cost gold mines in the world with yearly production of approximately one million ounces.
Two bedrock outcrops with a 5 km spacing between each other at the South Grass Valley Project reveal CTGD-style alteration and geochemistry within a 700-meter-thick sequence of lower plate carbonate host rocks directly below the Roberts Mountains Thrust.
Based on air magnetic geophysics and gravity, these favorable host rocks project under comparatively shallow cover across a large portion of the Project. This large area of promising geology is intersected by an N-S high-angle fault corridor that projects under the cover from the exposed range front based on mapping and gravity geophysics, offering a prospective major conduit to expose the known favorable host rocks to mineralized hydrothermal fluids.
From November 2017 to January 2018, NGE finished 69 infill groundwater sampling boreholes at South Grass Valley to follow up on a gold-in-groundwater anomaly detected during a regional-scale, generative exploration program. The objectives of NGE’s infill program were to determine the size, extent, and magnitude of the gold-in-groundwater footprint at South Grass Valley and its connection to the larger prospective geologic setting, and to construct support for a deeper drilling program.
NGE revealed the results from the first 44 boreholes on January 22, 2018. Altogether, NGE has currently completed 135 boreholes across the Project area, gathering samples from most boreholes at several depths, for a total of 234 groundwater samples.
The results of NGE’s infill borehole program have established a focused 1,000 x 4,000 m N-S oriented zone of enriched gold, antimony, arsenic, barium, tungsten, thallium, and sulfate in groundwater, signifying a hydrogeochemistry footprint consistent in size and magnitude (with gold up to 800 times background) as those observed around Lone Tree and Twin Creeks, large known gold deposits on the Cortez Trend, as well as at NGE’s Kelly Creek Project.
Notably, this zone of enrichment is coincident with the projected intersection of the major N-S high-angle fault corridor and the favorable lower plate carbonate host rocks known to be present at the Project. At 4,000 m in length, NGE believes that the size of the target is sufficiently large to support a district-scale mineral system, and at 1,000 m in width, NGE believes that the target is at present suitably constrained for a focused deeper drilling program to assess the potential for economic mineralization related to the projected major structural controls.
With characteristic CTGD lower plate host rocks exposed in outcrop at the Project, and with strong support from mapping and geophysics that these favourable host rocks continue under cover and intersect a major high-angle structure, this project area has drawn the interest of many exploration companies. As the first group to use hydrogeochemistry at the Project, we are the first to have been able to integrate this new geochemical filter into our exploration program to systematically evaluate this highly-prospective covered target. We are very pleased to share with our stakeholders that the results from our infill program have provided the required, but up-until-now missing, support for gold mineralization at the Project. We have constrained this large prospective area to a focused and compelling target that is now ready for a deeper drilling program.
Wade Hodges, NGE’s CEO