Oct 22 2020
Nevada Exploration Inc. has provided a corporate update and reported that it has staked additional unpatented mining claims spanning around 25 km2. This move has considerably increased the company’s land holdings at its Awakening Gold Project.
Nevada Exploration’s Awakening Gold Project. Image Credit: Nevada Exploration Inc.
The Awakening Gold Project is a low-sulfidation epithermal gold project directly located north of the 4.8 million-ounce Sleeper Gold Mine that belongs to Paramount Gold Nevada Corp.
Since 2008, Nevada Exploration has remained active on the Sleeper Gold Mine and finished a progressive series of district-scale geophysics, geochemistry, and orientation-drilling programs to construct an in-depth exploration dataset to focus on Sleeper-style mineralization.
Discussing the Awakening Gold Project and Nevada Exploration’s plans, NGE President James Buskard stated, “As our stakeholders know, we founded NGE to leverage the latest technology to identify new high-quality gold projects.”
We’ve completed one of the largest geochemistry-based generative exploration programs in recent history—certainly the largest in Nevada in several decades, and Awakening was one of the original high-priority projects identified by our industry-leading program. It’s a predominantly-covered project, and we’ve completed significant work to establish the major geologic building blocks to guide the next phases of exploration.
James Buskard, President, Nevada Exploration Inc.
Buskard continued, “As we’ve been increasing our Awakening land position, we remain committed to completing the next phase of drilling at the East Golden Gorge target at our flagship South Grass Valley project.”
We are working through the remaining permitting steps, and in the meantime are continuing to review all of our results to date, which now include more than 400,000 unique geochemical assays from more than 9,000 drilling, mapping, groundwater, and soil samples across an area comparable in size to the northern-Carlin trend, in order to fine-tune our geologic model and ensure that our planned drill holes sample and test as large a volume of the East Golden Gorge target as possible.
James Buskard, President, Nevada Exploration Inc.
Buskard added, “In parallel to preparing for the next round of drilling at South Grass Valley, we’ve also been advancing our two other projects: Kelly Creek and North Grass Valley. At Kelly Creek, we’ve been facilitating the Austin Gold Corp. technical team’s data compilation and review for the purpose of focusing Austin’s efforts for its initial work program, where Austin must spend a minimum of $1,000,000 in qualifying expenditures prior to September 1, 2021.”
With Kelly Creek now in the hands of Austin’s team, we’re turning some of our attention and resources to acquiring the mapping, sampling, and other datasets at North Grass Valley to ultimately support the same geology-driven approach that led us to discovery of the large Carlin-type mineral system we’re currently advancing at South Grass Valley.
James Buskard, President, Nevada Exploration Inc.
“With a portfolio of four large projects, we are positioning our shareholders to participate in multiple opportunities for discovery, and we look forward to providing additional project-specific updates over the coming months as our work continues,” Buskard further added.
Awakening Gold Project
Based in Humboldt County, Nevada, the Awakening Gold Project stretches about 50 km north-northwest of Winnemucca, Nevada, and immediately north of the Sleeper Gold Mine, which yielded 1.66 million oz between 1986 and 1996 and has a remaining indicated and measured mineral resource of 3.14 million oz [297 million tons (Mt) at 0.33 g/t gold (Au)].
The Awakening Gold Project is mostly covered by post-mineral alluvium and syn- to post-mineral volcanic units and, hence, no significant exploration activity was performed in the past. Projections of favorable structure, lithology, and alteration at district, regional, and project scales indicate that gold mineralization may probably be situated within economic depths under the cover at the Awakening Gold Project.
To de-risk and advance the Awakening Gold Project, Nevada Exploration along with Northgate Minerals Corp., its previous joint-venture partner, has finished a series of systematic district-scale geochemistry, geophysics, and early-stage drilling programs to procure the exploration data required to ascertain the larger-scale geologic aspects across the project. The work involved:
- 173 km2 airborne magnetic survey
- 85 km2 comprehensive gravity geophysics survey
- 1,830 sample soil geochemistry program
- 42 line-km induced polarization and resistivity (IP) survey
- 62 borehole hydrogeochemistry (groundwater) sampling program
- 4,668 m of core, reverse-circulation, and mud-rotary drilling work from a total of 24 holes (average depth of 195 m)
The management of Nevada Exploration believes that the outcomes of these large-scale programs have validated the prospect to identify Sleeper-style mineralization along the structural zone that extends north from the Sleeper Gold Mine.
Together with the detailed study performed on the mineral controls at the Sleeper Gold Mine, which is currently being used to target more mineralization at the mine, Nevada Exploration assumes that its integrated exploration dataset at the Awakening Gold Project offers the basis for constructing a strong geologic model to delineate and prioritize particular exploration targets.
Incentive Stock Options
Nevada Exploration has also announced that incentive stock options have been granted to directors and officers under its Stock Option Plan. The stock options will allow them to buy an aggregate of up to 1,400,000 common shares of Nevada Exploration. They are exercisable on or before October 20th, 2030, at a cost of $0.185 for each share, subject to TSX Venture Exchange acceptance.