2,800m DD Campaign Underway In Idaho
Excellon Resources Inc. (TSX:EXN) has commenced a 2,800 metre diamond drilling programme at the Oakley Project, Idaho.
It has been joined in the programme by with Centerra (U.S.) Inc., which has the option to earn up to a 70% interest in the project by, among other things, spending up to US$7 million in exploration expenditures on the project prior to May 2026.
Centerra is the operator of the project and Excellon is the manager under the terms of the option agreement between the parties, with all expenditures currently being funded by Centerra.
“Oakley is a low sulphidation, epithermal gold project with the potential for Carlin-style mineralisation at depth, a similar setting to Liberty Gold’s Black Pine Project, 70 kilometres due east,” Ben Pullinger, SVP Geology and Corporate Development, said.
“Over the past year, we have been advancing the project with Centerra, collaboratively developing high quality targets as they earn into their option on the project. The current drill programme promises to test a number of these targets over the coming months and complements our strong 2021 exploration pipeline.”
The Cold Creek claims cover approximately 14 sq. km, including a structurally complex north to south valley with bounding faults that has created at least three prospective geologic zones along the western and eastern margins. The current drill programme will test targets within these zones, as follows:
Eastern Margin
A historically undrilled area of receptive units with gold in soil anomalies above shallow bedrock. Targets were generated by surface geochemistry and induced polarization surveys.
Bound Block
This area is bound by large structures on the east and west and has demonstrated surface and subsurface gold mineralisation. Reverse circulation (RC) drilling from the late 1980’s returned anomalous grades that have not been followed up on. More recent work delivered anomalous gold in soil and rock samples, with basin wide resistivity and chargeability anomalies. The programme is designed to test geophysical anomalies and follow-up on identified gold occurrences at surface.
Western Margin
A historically underexplored area of structural complexity with hydrothermal material at surface. RC drilling from the late 1980’s intersected 18.3m grading 0.46 g/t gold from surface. More recent work has identified gold in soil anomalies corresponding with a chargeability anomaly from IP surveying.
The Oakley project totals 2,833 hectares located 21 km south of Oakley, Idaho. Cold Creek is at the northern end of the claim blocks, flanking the northeastern side of South Middle Mountain. The project hosts low-sulphidation, epithermal mineralisation. The underlying Paleozoic Basin-and-Range sedimentary units have the potential to host Carlin-style epithermal mineralisation.
