Puma Exploration Inc., a Canadian-based mineral exploration company, has announced the release of initial observations from its 2021 inaugural diamond drill campaign at its wholly-controlled Williams Brook Gold property, situated in New Brunswick, Atlantic Canada.
Current drilling in progress at Lynx Gold Zone. Image Credit: Puma Exploration.
The program has been developed to delineate the high-grade gold vein networks exposed at the surface at the Lynx Gold Zone to better specify any possible high-grade shoot gold system extending along strike and at depth.
So far, four holes, totaling 524.5 m, have been drilled inside the same section N155 and collared over the high-grade gold mineralization at the LYNX Gold Zone. Some specks of Visible Gold (VG) were intersected in the first two holes (WB21-01 and WB21-02) that are now logged and divided sufficiently.
Strong brecciated and modified rhyolite and/or modified sediments collared all the holes. Abundant quartz veins and a huge network of quartz veinlets were noticed, indicating pervasive sericite alteration with disseminated sulfides (chalocopyrite, stibinite pyrite, galena, sphalerite and malachite) across more than 50 m in each hole.
According to Puma, logging and sampling are ongoing. It is not certain that the assays will show the present visual observation, but the core extracted from the ground is similar to the surface stripping observations.
Review of Previous Field Reports
An elaborate review of historical reports to determine the drilling pattern employed by earlier operators enabled the technical team to highlight a diamond drill program performed in 2008 by Blue Note Mining. During the release, Blue Note Mining announced an interval of 11.16 g/t Au over 2.8 m (hole WB08-11).
The results of the initial assay (FA) for a 0.50 m (24.3–24.8 m) interval in this intersection returned a value of 501 g/t Au and was re-assayed at 269 g/t Au. A third assay performed with a metallic screen returned 24.5 g/t Au.
The new result was used to estimate the weighted average grade of the 2.8 m intercept at 11.2 g/t Au. Upon using the average of the three results rather than the lower one, the complete intercept of the hole WB08-11 would be 54.1 g/t over 2.8 m inside a broader zone of 23.8 g/t Au over 6.4 m.
The Hole WB08-11 was bored at the Williams Brook property around 5 km to the northwest of the O’Neil Gold Trend (OGT). The mineralization was found in quartz veins inside a modified rhyolite with py-ga-sp disseminated mineralization. Visible gold was also observed in the hole.
O’Neil Gold Trend (OGT)
The O’Neil Gold Trend (OGT), a pervasive brecciated and modified rhyolite unit, hosts considerable gold showings and occurrences after trenching along a strike length of 700 m. The OGT’s geophysical signature has been expressed over 7 km. The preferred unit (rhyolite) is similar and parallel to the structures that host the “Williams 1” and “Williams 2” Gold Zones with chosen drill results of 11.2 g/t over 2.8 m, 2.1 g/t Au over 9.0 m and 1.0 g/t over 23 m.
Such trends have identifiably been linked to a significant rifting in the New Brunswick Geological events and could constitute a low sulfidation epithermal gold system. Over the OGT, the width of the modified horizon changes from 5 to 250 m, with an average apparent thickness of around 150 m.
Several quartz veinlets, quartz veins, breccias and stockworks were noted mostly perpendicular to the major trend and consist of the gold mineralization. The OGT has never been bored and several gold zones were found during the summer 2020 exploration campaign.
High-Grade Selected Grab Samples Assays on the Prolific O’Neil Gold Trend (OGT)
- O’Neil Gold Zone (VG**): 128.5 g/t Au, 44.4 g/t Au, 38.8 g/t Au, 32.8 g/t Au, 23.1 g/t Au
- Lynx Gold Zone (VG**): 241.0 g/t Au, 79.8 g/t Au, 74.2 g/t Au, 63.5 g/t Au, 58.4 g/t Au
- Pepitos Gold Zone (VG**): 52.1 g/t Au, 16.1 g/t Au, 15.0 g/t Au, 13.1 g/t Au, 4.87 g/t Au
- Moose Gold Zone: 2.4 g/t Au, 2.1 g/t Au, 1.3 g/t Au, 1.1 g/t Au
- Chubby Zone Area: 3.5 g/t Au, 1.2 g/t Au, 1.2 g/t Au, 0.45 g/t Au
*Chosen rock grab samples are selective by nature and might not represent the true grade or style
**VG: Visible Gold