Oct 16 2020
79North Inc. reports the conclusion of the LiDAR survey and speeding up of the exploration program that began in August on the Nassau gold project in the Republic of Suriname.
Location of exploration targets of the Nassau gold project, Suriname. Image Credit: 79North.
The 20,000-hectare Nassau gold project is an under-explored property situated 60 km to the east of Iamgold Corporation’s Rosebel gold mine and 20 km to the south of Newmont Corporation’s Merian gold mine.
The Nassau gold project has comparable geological structures and stratigraphy similar to both the Rosebel and Merian gold mines, and 79North has determined three areas of prospective gold mineralization, which will be the focus of additional exploration, as well as an area of high-grade gold-bearing surface rock samples that border a central plateau where gold has been excavated from alluvium for about a century.
A property-wide LiDAR survey has been finished at the Nassau gold project. The LiDAR survey will offer topographic and bedrock structural data using a laser transmitter and receiver that can infiltrate through the forest canopy.
This will be the most exact data ever gathered at Nassau and will give 79North, for the first time, a precise map of where artisanal gold mining has been finished and is continuing. In addition, it will indicate the location of structural lineaments that may control the gold concentration in the bedrock of the project.
79North considers that the data from the LiDAR survey will also expose more bedrock targets within the extremely prospective geological terrane.
Four targets will be examined during the present exploration program (Exhibit 1):
- Pici, where a large field of residual quartz vein boulders comprising anomalous gold has been detected
- Carbonara, where new placer mining coincides with a topographic and magnetic anomaly that could specify gold mineralization and silica alteration
- Marinara, where former auger drilling intersected anomalous gold in saprolite
- Witlage Creek, where gold-bearing rock samples have been identified.
The ground exploration team, which started its work in August, has identified a grid at the Pici Target and line cutting at the Carbonara Target is ongoing. Geologic mapping, hand auger sampling, and prospecting will start straightaway at the Pici grid. September is the first month of the main dry season in Suriname, and good working conditions will continue until the start of the next major rainy season in April 2021.
A 1,500 m auger drilling program is scheduled on the Marinara target during this field season, with further drilling predicted on Carbonara, Pici, and Witlage Creek as targets are additionally refined and selected based on the present geochemical survey results. It is expected that diamond drilling will follow up soon on targets produced by this initial exploration.
In spite of delays because of the Covid pandemic that have affected the entire mining industry, our geophysical contractor has been able to complete the LiDAR survey, we have been able to establish the first of three grids at Nassau, and I was able to obtain special permission to enter Suriname on October 9 to directly supervise the work described herein when I finish a quarantine period that ends October 17.
Jon North, PhD, PGeo, Chief Executive Officer, 79North Inc.
North added, “The next step is to commence hand auger geochemical sampling, geological mapping, and prospecting and to use the LiDAR survey to evaluate our existing targets and define additional targets with all of these activities leading us towards our first diamond drilling program as soon as possible.”
79North is well-positioned with about $3.5 million in working capital to commence the currently scheduled exploration programs.