Solstice Gold Corp said it has started Phase 1 drilling at its 100%-owned Red Lake Extension (RLX) project in the northwestern corner of the prolific Red Lake Gold Camp.
The company said the 5,000 meter (m) drill program will test three main target areas at an average depth of around 250m below surface. The target areas outlined are the initial or summer target areas and exclude winter-accessible areas of the project.
"After a year of systematic technical work by our team, we are excited to reveal several well-developed drill targets which further demonstrate the potential of the property,” Mike Timmins, Solstice CEO said in a statement.
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"We will test this potential with the current drill program and continue to leverage our technical edge as we embark on a campaign to explore, for the first time, 16 km of prospective gold-bearing structure in Red Lake. Vital Drilling, based in Sudbury has commenced drilling at the Central Target, a milestone that marks an exciting time for Solstice shareholders ahead of what we anticipate being a catalytic second half of 2022," he added.
RLX hosts a road-accessible, 16-kilometre-long, largely unexplored extension of the Red Lake Greenstone Belt and lies in the vicinity of a major deep-tapping fault inferred by government geologists and researchers from seismic data.
Mapping by the Ontario Geological Survey has identified a regional scale mylonite zone, the Nungessor Shear Zone, which parallels the property to the west. In the western part of the RLX project, a distinctive intrusive rock type known as 'Sanukitoid' has also been mapped by government geologists.
"We believe that our RLX project has all the attributes to host gold mineralization in a gold camp that continues to yield new gold discoveries. Our focused and integrated exploration program has identified several compelling and significantly sized target areas, which we look forward to testing with our first drill program in this area of the Camp," said Solstice chairman David Adamson.
Three main target areas are to be tested in the upcoming diamond drilling. In order of priority, they are:
- Central Target — The proposed drill holes are designed to test a 2km times 0.9km target area that demonstrates a close spatial relationship between: Elevated soils (Au plus several pathfinder elements); the outline of areas of moderate to low resistivity as shown by the 140-160m vertical conductivity slice from the EM SCI 1D inversion model; and the mapped margin of the Sanukitoid intrusive. Proposed drill holes at the Central Target are designed to test geology, gold in soils and EM horizons at a vertical depth of approximately 150m below surface.
- South Fold Target —This area is defined by a NE trending fold cut by regional-scale NE-faults. Mapping in this area has identified epidote and carbonate layered mafic volcanic flows and flow breccias with local intercalated exhalite units. These are likely correlated to mafic volcanics in the main RLGB. The area exhibits strong Bi-Pb-Mo and Au-Ag-Sb soil anomalies. EM inversion modeling identifies three main target areas which display increasing conductivity with depth. Drilling in this area is designed to test all three attributes, geological, geochemical, and geophysical.
- North Central Target — Drilling in this area will test across an area of well-developed Ag-Sb-As and Au-Mo soil anomalies which likely overlay, in part, sericite schist, which was partially intersected at the top of a 1980 drill hole located approximately 250m to the north. Sericite schist is one of the key target units of the exploration model in this area and drilling is designed to drill across the target sequence and elevated soils. The target area is also cut by a regional-scale NE fault which will also be tested by the proposed drill holes. Weakly conductive EM responses are noted in this area which would is consistent with a target which may contain minor sulphides within units that include sericite schists.
Solstice is an exploration company with district-scale gold projects in established mining regions of Canada. Its 180-square-kilometre Red Lake Extension and New Frontier projects are located at the northwestern extension of the prolific Red Lake Camp in Ontario and approximately 45km from the Red Lake Mine Complex owned by Evolution Mining.
Contact the author at jon.hopkins@proactiveinvestors.com