Aurion Resources (TSX-V:AU) Limited has announced results from regional exploration programs and the start of drilling at its Risti property in the Central Lapland Greenstone Belt in northern Finland.
Aurion kicked off a regional scale till sampling program in late 2020 and has continued the program throughout 2022, aiming to discover information on regional geology and gold prospectivity in till-covered and mainly unexplored parts of the property.
"We are pleased to recommence diamond drilling on Aurion's 100% owned Risti property. The 2022 program will focus on growing our high-grade discovery at Aamurusko and will include regional targets, under cover, detected by base of till sampling (BOT) and geophysical surveys,” Aurion CEO Matti Talikka said in a statement.
READ: Aurion Resources hails 'highly successful' winter drill program at Finland joint venture with B2Gold
“Significant recent discoveries in Lapland; Kittilä Mine (Agnico Eagle), Ikkari (Rupert Resources) and Sakatti (Anglo American), resulted from BOT and geophysics programs," he added.
The well-funded, Canadian exploration company noted that the vast majority of Risti is covered by glacial till and these areas aren’t amenable to prospecting and surface mapping. Instead, till sampling combined with geophysical surveys have been key exploration methods behind most gold and base metal discoveries within the Central Lapland Greenstone Belt.
Aurion said a total of 1,938 new base of till samples have been taken from Risti since late 2021, with results pending for over 600 samples. The results to date highlight several areas with elevated gold at Risti. For example, 30 samples have returned highly anomalous values exceeding 0.1 grams per ton (g/t) gold in till with the highest value of 1.26 g/t gold.
In addition, several pathfinder elements have returned highly anomalous values of up to 1,975 parts per million (ppm) arsenic, 2,560 ppm copper, 1 ppm tellurium, 7.48 ppm silver, 815 ppm lead, 9,230 ppm zinc, 0.129 ppm platinum and 0.086 ppm palladium.
Meanwhile, Aurion said ground magnetic surveys on selected areas are ongoing and also summed up its other ongoing follow-up activities:
- The base of till sampling program will also be expanded into previously untested areas;
- Drilling program is expected to continue until the end of 2022;
- Drilling to test for extensions of gold mineralization at Aamurusko;
- Scout drilling to test regional targets such as base of till anomalies and geophysical features.
Aurion's current focus is exploring its Flagship Risti and Launi projects, as well as advancing its joint venture properties with B2Gold and Kinross in Finland.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive