Nine Mile Metals Ltd. (CSE:NINE, OTCID:VMSXF, FRA:KQ9) earlier this week reported further drill results from its Wedge Project in New Brunswick's Bathurst Mining Camp as the company advances a 10,000-metre drilling program targeting the historical deposit and its potential extensions.
CEO Patrick Cruickshank told Proactive the past-producing mine historically operated in the late 1950s and early 1960s and was primarily known as a copper-lead-zinc deposit. He said the company was now using drilling and modern exploration techniques to investigate mineralisation beneath and around the old mine workings.
Cruickshank said 17 holes had been drilled under the current program, although assay results had been subject to a bottleneck. He noted that the amount of core requiring processing reflected the mineralised intersections encountered during drilling.
Discussing the latest holes from the southern part of the project, Cruickshank said Nine Mile Metals was drilling at depth beneath the historical workings and had identified three mineralised lenses with differing characteristics.
He said the latest holes were particularly notable for zinc, silver and gold, while other lenses encountered by the company were more copper-rich.
“The biggest thing we're finding is as we're going deeper, the grades are getting higher,” Cruickshank said.
He added that the trend was not limited to copper, with increases also being observed across zinc, lead, silver and gold.
Upcoming assays from the wider drilling campaign provide one potential catalyst as Nine Mile Metals continues to build its dataset. Further technical work is also planned, with Cruickshank saying a crew was expected in September as part of work involving eight holes around the deposit to develop a subsurface 3D conductivity picture.
That work is intended to improve the company's understanding of the historical workings and the location, extension and orientation of the mineralised lenses.
Nine Mile Metals also has data from more than 300 historical drill holes, which it is combining with its new drilling and deeper holes across the flanks of the deposit.
Cruickshank said the ultimate objective was to complete an updated NI 43-101 and progress towards a mineral resource estimate, providing further potential milestones as the Wedge exploration program advances.