Ongoing Exploration At Ontario Palladium Project
New Age Metals Inc. (TSXV: NAM; OTCQB: NMTLF) is making good progress with the ongoing Pre-Feasibility Study (PFS) and exploration drilling at the River Valley Palladium Project near Sudbury, Ontario.
Progress has been made in the PFS in the mineral processing and metallurgical work programmes and the geomechanical work programme
Concurrently, NAM has commenced exploration drilling at the Banshee Zone.
PFS
Mineral Processing and Metallurgical Sampling Drill Programme
Four drill holes totalling approximately 800m have been completed; one each on the Dana North, Dana South, Lismer North and Lismer South Zones. Each of the holes was drilled downwards to intersect as much mineralisation as possible for mineral processing and metallurgical testwork by SGS Canada Inc. (Lakefield).
HQ-size core was retrieved, logged and sampled metre-by-metre by NAM. Eight-hundred 1-m long ½ core samples plus blind QA/QC samples have now been delivered to SGS, where processing and preparation for assaying and testwork has commenced.
Assay results are pending from the laboratory and will be reported when available. The samples will be composited for mineralised zone, rock type and particularly grade variability testing. The testwork programme at SGS is being managed on behalf of NAM by D.E.N.M Engineering Ltd. (Burlington).
Geomechanical Drill Programme
The Geomechanical drill programme consists of work on 10 drill holes. Five of these holes totalling 1,410m will be drilled starting in mid-August to provide fresh, oriented HQ-size core material for rock property and structural geology studies by Knight Piésold Ltd. (North Bay).
Two of the holes will be drilled at Dana North Zone, one hole at Dana South Zone, at least one hole at Lismer North Zone, and one hole at Lismer Ridge Zone, as planned by Knight Piésold. The drilling will start imminently at Lismer North and be completed by Jacob & Samuel Drilling Ltd. (Sudbury).
Additionally, a total of four historical holes at Dana North, Lismer North and Lismer Ridge Zones have been selected to be surveyed by a televiewer instrument for rock type and structural geology information. The drill programme is slated for completion in Q4 2021.
In addition to the geomechanical work, the new diamond holes to be drilled at Dana South, Lismer North and Lismer Ridge will also be logged and sampled as exploration holes. Core samples will be sent to SGS Laboratories (Sudbury) for assaying. Assay results will be released when available.
Exploration Drilling
Exploration on the River Valley Property continues during the Pre-Feasibility Study. A focus of the 2021 exploration program is the Banshee Zone.
The Banshee Zone was discovered by mineral prospecting and drilling between 2002 to 2004. Despite its central location between the Dana Zones to the north and the Lismer Zones to the east and south, the Banshee Zone has been overlooked in post-2004 exploration programmes due to its apparently small size and lower grade.
At a cut-off grade of 0.35 g/t PdEq, the current (2019) pit-constrained Mineral Resource Estimate for Banshee is 3.36 Mt grading 0.29 g/t Pd, 0.17 g/t Pt, 0.03 g/t Au, 0.04% Cu and 0.01% Ni, or 0.55 g/t PdEq, all in the Inferred classification.
This resource is based on a database of just 22 diamond drill holes totalling 4,274 m, with an average depth of only <200 m below surface. Below that depth, the palladium mineralisation remains open to expansion by drilling down-dip along the 700m strike-length of the Zone.
A combination of near-historic high Pd price and its central location means that the Banshee Zone could be of strategic importance to any future mining operation at River Valley.
The 2021 exploration plan for Banshee consists of 13 holes totalling 4,175 m (Figure 4), designed to expand the known extents of mineralisation down-dip. The exploration drilling commenced at the south end of Banshee in late July, following completion of the IP geophysical survey in June.
To date, four of the drill holes have been completed and contact-type Cu-Fe sulphide mineralisation typical of the River Valley Deposit was encountered.
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