FireFox Gold Corp. (TSXV:FFOX) has completed a small drilling programme aimed primarily at offsetting the newly discovered high-grade zone in the East Target at its Mustajärvi Project in Finland. The company drilled six shallow diamond core holes at Mustajärvi totalling 97m.
The company announced on July 13, 2022, that its May drill programme at Mustajärvi had returned the best drillhole yet on the project (22MJ006: 13.85m at 14.39 g/t gold), and that the mineralization encountered in this new zone occurs very near surface (less than 20.0m vertical).
Subsequent screen fire assays identified significant coarse gold in one of the samples. The results from the more rigorous screen fire assays returned a calculated total gold for one of the samples of approximately 227.4 g/t gold. All other high-grade (>10.0 g/t) samples within the interval were confirmed by multiple 50-gram fire assays with gravimetric finish and by the 1,000-gram screen fire assays. The resulting new weighted average for the interval in drill hole 22MJ006 was 13.85m at 28.74 g/t gold.
After observing apparent cross structures in the drill core from the East Target, the FireFox team designed a drill program with five holes to test the alternative direction and also explore for expansions of the new shallow high-grade zone. Drillholes 22MJ021, -22, and -23 were directed to the northeast instead of to the north-northwest, which has been the prevailing drill direction at Mustajärvi.
Two additional holes (22MJ024 and -025) were drilled parallel to 22MJ006 to test for continuations of the high-grade zone to depth and to the southwest. The sixth hole was also aimed at testing for the cross structures, but at the Northeast Target, a few hundred metres away. All the holes in this program were of modest depth, five of the six ranged between 100 and 160m depth, and one hole was drilled to 267m.
“It is uncommon in gold exploration today to encounter such thick intervals of high-grade at less than 20m below surface, so we moved quickly to follow-up on our last drill results with these several shallow drill holes,” CEO, Carl Löfberg, said.
“It was also a great opportunity to test our observations that suggest some new controls on the mineralization in the East Target. Success in these recent drillholes would result in a considerable expansion of the newest high-grade zone. We look forward to reporting the results from this drill program in a few weeks.”
Drillhole 22MJ006 was the sixth drillhole along approximately 1.5km of strike of the Mustajärvi Shear Zone that penetrated more than 90 gram-metres of gold, expressed as grade – thickness (thickness of significant interval in metres multiplied by the weighted average gold content in grams per tonne).
Most of these intervals have been reported from drill holes directed to the north-northwest, perpendicular to the Mustajärvi Shear Zone, because that has been shown to be an important controlling direction for the gold mineralization.
In several instances, FireFox geologists have noted crossing structures that also appear to host significant alteration, veining, and gold. The most recent intercepts from the East Target indicate that the cross structures may be very important in this area and could expand the thickness of the mineralization.
The host rocks at the East Target also seem to include more sedimentary rocks (laminated siliciclastic rocks) and mafic volcanics or intrusions than have characterized either the Central Zone or the Northeast Target. These important observations about changes to the mineral system as it trends to the northeast were strong drivers for the latest follow-up drilling.
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