Prospector Metals Corp. (TSX-V:PPP, OTCQX:ETHOF) has outlined its drill plans for next year across its projects, which includes a maiden campaign at the company's fully funded Whitton nickel-copper project in Ontario.
This property sits just 20 kilometres (km) from Impala's operating Lac des Iles platinum-palladium-nickel-copper mine but has seen sporadic exploration.
Prospector said the low-grade, yet significantly anomalous nickel-copper-platinum group elements (PGE) values in rocks with less than 5% total sulphide (disseminated) at the site suggested that rocks with massive sulphide concentrations should yield "much higher metal values".
"Our team has spent a significant portion of their careers exploring for magmatic nickel sulfide deposits including extensive work as part of the core exploration team at Western Mining," noted Alex Heath, the CEO of Prospector in a statement.
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"Based on the geology, mineralization including nickel-copper sulfides, and geophysical survey work they are quite excited by the potential for success in the maiden drill program at Whitton.
"We also look forward to advancing fieldwork on high-grade gold targets at both Savant in Ontario and Toogood in Newfoundland, with drilling plans on these projects to be finalized as this work progresses in the early part of the 2023 season," he added.
At the Savant gold project, where Prospector has a 70% earn-in option, new sampling this year of previously unsampled outcrop returned assays up to 99.6 grams per ton (g/t) gold and extended the known gold mineralization for 1.3 km along strike at WDZ and for 520 metres (m) at SSDZ.
Next year's planned exploration program at Savant is fully permitted and is expected to begin in May with property-wide prospecting and drill target definition, followed by drilling of high-priority targets, said Prospector.
Meanwhile, at its Toogood property, Prospector noted that a maiden drill program at the Quinlan Zone this year has extended the known surface expression of the gold-mineralized felsic dyke to 200m in-strike and 120m downdip, with visible gold in core identified in 14 of the 19 drillholes.
Exploration in 2023 will commence in the spring with further prospecting at the Quinlan Zone and additional drill target generation. A drill campaign is planned for the second half of 2023, contingent on the results of this work, it said.
Finally at its pipeline projects in Ontario and Quebec, the firm said it continues to add projects to the pipeline as "opportunities arise".
Projects will be systematically followed up with prospecting and/or geophysics in addition to stakeholder consultation and permitting activities, the company said.
Prospector Metals is a Discovery Group company focused on district-scale, early-stage exploration of gold and base metal prospects and create shareholder value through new discoveries.
Contact the writer at giles@proactiveinvestors.com