1911 Gold Corporation (TSXV: AUMB) (OTCQX: AUMBF) has kicked-off its 2022 exploration programme on its high-grade gold properties in Manitoba, including the 100% owned Rice Lake and Apex (Snow Lake) Gold Properties.
President and CEO, Ron Clayton, said that with the recent successful closing of the $8 million brokered private placement of flow-through shares the company has the financial resources to complete an aggressive exploration programme on the Rice Lake and Apex (Snow Lake) properties.
For Q1 2022, the company has laid-out an initial 11,000 metres of exploration drilling, including follow-up drilling of priority high-grade targets from its Phase I and Phase II programs, and first-pass drilling of several new targets generated by the company’s field exploration programmes.
“Our fully-funded exploration program is focused on advancing our key project areas, Tinney and Bidou, to identify resource potential, while also continuing to test new targets generated at the Tinney, Bidou, Wallace and Apex projects,” Mr Clayton said.
“We are very encouraged by the significant position taken in the Company by a mid-tier gold producer with an experienced exploration team that clearly shares our belief in the potential for significant discovery at Rice Lake. We look forward to a beneficial working relationship as we work towards identifying significant new resources at our Rice Lake property.”
The 2022 exploration drilling programme will commence with land-based drilling of high-grade targets at the Tinney project on the Rice Lake property, followed by ice-based drilling beginning in early February at the Rice Lake and Apex (Snow Lake) properties.
Helicopter-supported drilling is also scheduled to commence in early March at the Wallace project within the Rice Lake property. With work permits in-hand for all proposed exploration drilling, the Company has been preparing drill trails and pads for land- and ice-based drilling programme at the Rice Lake and Apex properties since mid-December.
The company has confirmed that, following a competitive tendering process, it has once again partnered with Major Drilling for the 2022 exploration drilling programme.
Line cutting is near-complete at the Currie’s Landing project on the Rice Lake property and crews from Abitibi Geophysics are mobilising to site to complete a 24-line-kilometre induced-polarization (IP) survey over large-scale structural targets at Currie’s Landing, using Abitibi’s deep-penetrating OreVision IP system to identify the most prospective structures for drill testing, within an area with very little bedrock exposure and no record of previous exploration drilling.
The company has received support from the Government of Manitoba via a $300,000 grant from the Manitoba Mineral Development Fund (MMDF), which provided partial funding for the 2021 field exploration programme and was instrumental in advancing several new exploration targets to drill-stage.
Rice Lake Gold Property
The Rice Lake Gold Property is located on the Archean Rice Lake greenstone belt, which is the western extension of the prolific Red Lake belt in adjacent Ontario, and is situated along the same fundamental crustal-scale structure (ancient plate-margin) that accounts for the exceptional gold endowment of this district.
The company’s consolidated land position, now totalling over 58,000 hectares after recent strategic acquisitions, covers a 70-kilometre-long section of a crustal-scale ‘break’—referred to as the Wanipigow Fault—that represents a principal control on orogenic gold in the Rice Lake–Red Lake district.
Following up on high-grade intercepts from its previous exploration drilling programs, the Company plans to conduct follow-up drilling of several targets in the Tinney and Bidou project areas, focusing on major structures with potential to host significant high-grade gold mineralization.
This work will include infill and step-out drilling of the Edna-Otter and Bidou South targets, which have both yielded strong intercepts in previous drilling, including 8.1 g/t Au over 5.7 metres (EO-21-005) at the Edna-Otter target and 6.0 g/t Au over 3.3 metres (BL-20-005) from the Bidou South target.
Step-out drilling will also be completed at the Cougar and Bidou Shear targets, in order to test for extensions of gold mineralisation along the principal structures in both locations. Additionally, the company will conduct first-pass drilling of five new targets at the Bidou and Tinney projects, to test large-scale structures that returned high-grade gold values from the Company’s grab and channel sampling programme.
At the Wallace project, five new targets have been advanced to drill stage through fieldwork and high-resolution UAV magnetic surveys (EarthEx Geophysical Solutions Inc.) in 2020 and 2021. Each of these targets are associated with large-scale structures that cut across the hinge of a regional-scale fold structure, and locally contain high-grade gold mineralization on surface.
Only one of these targets has any record of historical drilling, which consisted of shallow, close-spaced drillholes over one small section of a kilometre-scale and poorly-exposed structure. This drilling will be helicopter-supported and is planned for early March, once increased daylight hours allow for maximum efficiency of drill moves and crew changes.
At the Curries Landing project, the company has contracted Abitibi Geophysics to complete a deep-penetrating IP survey (OreVision system) over a 24 line-kilometre grid covering a regional-scale unexposed fold structure of a major geological contact, immediately adjacent to the Wanipigow fault – a geological setting analogous to many world-class orogenic gold districts. The survey results are anticipated in late February and will inform drill targeting within this very large-scale prospective target, which has not previously been drill-tested.
Apex (Snow Lake) Gold Property
The Apex Gold Property, totalling 2,200 hectares, is located in the Paleoproterozoic Flin Flon – Snow Lake greenstone belt, which is one of the most productive belts of that age worldwide, hosting numerous world-class base metal deposits as well as the 1.5-million-ounce New Britannia gold deposit, located at Snow Lake, 14 kilometres northwest of the Apex Property.
Significant gold deposits and occurrences in the district are spatially associated with the structurally complex northern margin of the belt; the company’s Apex Property is situated between two crustal-scale faults cutting this margin, representing a highly favourable structural setting.
Grab sampling by the company has returned numerous high-grade gold values, with over 50% of the samples collected to date yielding values greater than 1 g/t gold and close to 20% of samples yielding high-grade (>5 g/t) gold values.
The surface sampling results, coupled with a deep-penetrating IP geophysical survey (Abitibi Geophysics’ OreVision system), indicate a number of compelling drill targets, and the company plans to test five of the highest-priority targets with first-pass drilling beginning in February 2022, once sufficient ice thickness is achieved on the ice-road across Wekusko Lake, presently under construction.
For further information please visit: https://www.1911gold.com/
