Maple Gold Mines Limited reported initial assay results from the first drill hole of the company's approximately 4,700-metre (m) Phase II drill program at its Eagle Mine property in Québec, Canada.
In the same statement, the Canadian advanced exploration company also announced that Kiran Patankar will replace Gregg Orr as the company’s chief financial officer (CFO). Patankar has been the senior VP of growth strategy at Maple Gold since 2021 and will continue to steer corporate strategy and evaluate strategic initiatives.
An accomplished mining executive, Patankar has over 15 years of senior investment banking experience. He holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management and a Bachelor of Science degree in Geological Engineering from the Colorado School of Mines.
Meanwhile, Maple Gold said the Phase II program consisted of four master diamond drill holes and one daughter diamond drill hole to test potential extensions of mineralization along and beneath the past-producing, high-grade Eagle-Telbel mine trend.
The company highlighted the following:
- Drill hole EM-22-009 intersected 11.4 grams per tonne (g/t) gold (Au) over 3m, including 24.4 g/t Au over 1m, to the north of the modeled main Eagle-Telbel mine horizon in the hanging wall microgabbro;
- The new EM-22-009 intercept is to the north of the main modeled Eagle mine in the hanging wall microgabbro. There’s limited historical drilling in the hanging wall at Eagle, but the EM-22-009 intercept and other high-grade historical intercepts hosted in the same microgabbro unit are indications of additional styles of gold mineralization at Eagle beyond the known Eagle-Telbel style mined historically and may provide for broader gold distribution than previously interpreted;
- The company has drilled around 16,450m out of approximately 30,000m planned in 2022 across its Québec project portfolio; Eagle assays have now been reported for around 5,400m, representing 59% of completed Eagle drilling.
"These initial Phase II assays include the best result thus far from our 2022 drilling at Eagle and the location of the intercept holds great significance for our exploration targeting, including Phase III drilling later this year," Maple Gold CEO Matthew Hornor said in a statement.
"While core cutting has recently been impacted by electrical issues at site, we are implementing temporary and permanent solutions to improve efficiency and we expect the assay backlog to ease in the coming weeks. I am also delighted to welcome Kiran in his expanded role with the company,” he added.
Maple Gold’s Phase I/II drilling at Eagle has confirmed that in addition to the conformable semi-massive pyrite horizon mined historically at Eagle-Telbel, multiple additional zones, overlapping with the Harricana Deformation Zone, are also prospective, said the company.
Significantly, Phase III drilling at Eagle, which is expected to kickoff in the fourth quarter this year, will follow-up not only on the best results of the first two drilling phases, but also on the results of previous downhole electromagnetic surveys, on ranked airborne EM targets from the recently competed Mag-EM survey.
Maple Gold Mines is in a 50/50 joint venture with Agnico Eagle Mines Limited to jointly advance the district-scale Douay and Joutel gold projects in Quebec's prolific Abitibi Greenstone Gold Belt. In addition, the company holds an exclusive option to acquire 100% of the Eagle Mine property.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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