Testing Premier Gold Project In BC After Road Thaw
Ascot Resources Ltd (TSX: AOT; OTCQX: AOTVF) pleased to announce the 2021 exploration drill programme at the company’s Premier Gold Project (PGP) near Stewart in northwestern British Columbia.
The company said the access road to the site has now been cleared after a winter of significant snowfall and Ascot is preparing to start its exploration programmme and the preliminary preparations (Early Works) for the construction of the PGP.
The company is conducting its programme utilising local contractors and temporary employees with a minimum of travel in and out of the communities.
President and CEO, Derek White, said that although the company is focused on the construction activities of the PGP, significant effort will go towards realising the untested exploration potential of the property as well as expanding the resource base of the PGP. The company is planning to complete approximately 25,000m of drilling both from surface and underground starting in the last week of May 2021.
“We have several very promising exploration targets and last year‘s drilling programme demonstrated how successful exploration can be at the Premier site, especially at the Premier West and Day zone areas,” Mr White said.
“We are very excited to continue that success in 2021 and we plan to drill several new target areas both close to and away from known resources.”
Ascot is planning to start the exploration drilling in the last week of May to the west of the Premier deposit. The lower elevation of this area enables the company to commence exploration at this time until the road to Big Missouri has been cleared and snow has melted at higher elevations.
Last year’s programme successfully traced gold mineralisation from the Premier deposit towards the west. There is significant volume of prospective rock to the west and northwest of last year’s drill holes that will be targeted in the early stages of the 2021 programme.
Depending on the access to drill pad locations, exploration activities will move to Woodbine or the Day Zone at Big Missouri. The Woodbine prospect is located to the west of the Premier deposit and last year’s drilling intercepted high-grade gold mineralisation at two different elevations. Anomalous soil geochemistry indicates the possible presence of mineralization at a third elevation higher than the other two that were tested last year. Late in the 2020 season, the Ascot team established a drill pad location at the top of the Woodbine prospect that is designed to test mineralization of all three elevations and determine the orientation and extend of these new zones.
At the Day Zone at Big Missouri, drilling has intercepted high-grade gold mineralization in multiple drill holes from three different drill pads covering an initial strike length of 150 metres.
The xompany is also planning to drill underexplored areas north of the Premier deposit (Sebakwe zone) and showings in the very northern part of the tenement north of Big Missouri.
At Silver Hill, in 2020 the company intercepted silver mineralization hosted in volcanic rocks close to the interface between volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Our claim block covers a large area of prospective ground for this style of mineralisation and it will be necessary to conduct mapping and prospecting over the entire contact area in order to more efficiently target areas
Underground Exploration
The Company has submitted a notice of work to commence underground drilling from an exploration ramp that will be driven from the S1 pit at Big Missouri towards the Silver Coin deposit as soon as permits have been received. The underground exploration will have two different objectives:
The first objective is to explore the area between Big Missouri and Silver Coin where drilling to date has been sparse; and the second objective is to drill test various zones of inferred resources and upgrade their resource status to indicated in order to enable the inclusion of these resources into the mine plan. Underground access also presents opportunities to drill a few deep holes to probe the underlying areas that have to date not been tested due to prohibitive cost and limitations of the available equipment.
