Pure Gold sees considerable increase in mineral resources at Madsen Gold Project

Speaking on 5 February, President and CEO of Pure Gold, Darin Labrenz, said: “Today’s updated mineral resource estimate is the first of several near term key milestones on the path to establishing a modern, scalable mining operation at Madsen.” 

“Over the past four years, our team’s disciplined, focused efforts and geological expertise, has established unequivocally that the Madsen deposit, in the very heart of Canada’s Red Lake mining district, is truly an exceptional asset.  The team’s efforts have resulted in an indicated mineral resource that has doubled over that period.  With this new high confidence resource, based on 1.2 million m of drilling, we are in great shape to put a mine plan together for the next chapter in the evolution and growth of the Red Lake camp.”

Mineral resource estimate

Since acquiring the project, Pure Gold’s exploration team has completed more than 209 000 m of new oriented-core drilling, in 918 holes, re-logged over 270 000 m of historical drill core and completed extensive surface and underground mapping, to build a comprehensive understanding of the three dimensional structural, alteration, and lithologic controls on mineralisation.  This understanding provides the foundation for the current geological model which has guided resource estimation in each of the resource areas.

The current mineral resource estimate of the Madsen Gold Project incorporates new drilling of 390 holes from surface and underground undertaken by Pure Gold since the last resource update. In total, the Madsen Gold Project drill hole database is comprised of 14 822 drill holes with a total of 1.2 million m of drilling. Geological modelling and resource estimation followed the same approach to that used in the 2017 mineral resource estimates which was validated by recent test mining of two planned stoping areas, where mined tonnes were within 1% of the predicted tonnes from the resource model, with an estimate of 14% more ounces than expected due to a higher than predicted average diluted grade of 10.9 g/t gold at a 4.0 g/t gold cut-off.  

Madsen resource 

Within the Madsen deposit, the overall average spacing between drill holes is 6.4 m within the high-grade domains, providing tight control on mineralised domains. Gold grades were estimated using ordinary kriging within a 3 x 3 x 3 metre block model coded by 43 discrete high grade mineral domains. The presence of barren dykes within the resource domains was accounted for using an indicator probability model to dilute the gold grades proportionally with the amount of logged dyke material in nearby drill holes. All previously existing underground voids were removed from the mineral resource and, as a conservative measure, these voids were expanded by five metres in all directions to provide a buffer which was also removed from the mineral resource estimate.

Satellite resources

The Fork and Russet South deposits were both updated as part of the current mineral resource estimates, with drill hole cut-off dates of 10 July 2018 and 10 August 2018 respectively.  The mineral resource estimate at Fork considered data from 45 525 m of drilling from 122 drill holes, including five new drill holes since the December 2017 estimate.  At Russet South, the mineral resource estimate considered data from 26 567 m of drilling from 105 drill holes, including 24 new drill holes completed since December 2017.

Mineral resources at Wedge, located approximately three kilometres by road south of the Madsen milling infrastructure, were estimated for the first time in this update.  Surface drilling in the Wedge area was conducted by Pure Gold in late 2017 through 2018, establishing strongly mineralised zones with good continuity that remain open for expansion. In total, the Wedge mineral resource estimate considered 52 238 m of drilling from 201 drill holes, with a cut-off date of 29 August 2018.

The estimation methodology for all satellite deposits used the same approach to that of the Madsen deposit.

Mineral resources for all zones are reported at a 4.0 g/t gold cut-off based on a gold price of US$1275 per troy ounce, gold metallurgical recoveries of 95%, and assumed underground mining methodology.

Read the article online at: https://www.globalminingreview.com/mining/06022019/pure-gold-sees-considerable-increase-in-mineral-resources-at-madsen-gold-project/