Québec Nickel Corp provided a sweeping update on the recent exploration activities at its Ducros nickel-copper-cobalt-gold-platinum-group elements (PGE) project, 80 kilometers (km) northeast of Val-d’Or, in Québec.
The Vancouver, British Columbia-based mineral exploration company said drilling at the Fortin Sill Zone and the immediate area continues with two surface drills. The focus of drilling is the interpreted extensions of the nickel-copper-PGE zone, evaluating multiple geophysical anomalies that have similar expressions as that at the Fortin Sill Zone, as well as exploring the mineralized system at depth.
As previously reported, a second drill was mobilized to the Fortin Sill Zone drilling program in October following the company’s drilling success, including an 8.43-meter-long intersection assaying 1.85% nickel (Ni), 1.65% copper (Cu) (3.50% Ni + Cu), 576 parts per million (ppm) Co and 3.27 grams per tonne (g/t) platinum (Pt), palladium (Pd) and gold in hole QDG-22-29.
READ: Quebec Nickel drills possible extension of Fortin Sill Zone at Ducros project in Quebec
Core logging and sampling are in progress and results are pending for over half the samples submitted to the assay lab for this phase of work, said the company.
Meanwhile, the company highlighted that the inaugural drilling program at the Ducros Ultramafic Sill Complex (DUSC) was completed with permissive rock types encountered in all holes. Over 3,650 metres in 10 holes were drilled along an east-west fence. Core logging and sampling is in progress and assay results from the Phase I DUSC drilling will be reported when available.
Drilling program planning
The company reported it has received the final results of the fixed-wing airborne gravity survey completed by Xcalibur Multiphysics in September this year. The 2,054-line km Falcon Gravity system survey was flown at a 100-meter line spacing and covers the entire Ducros property.
In addition, final data from the additional 3,000 line-km of high-resolution drone magnetic surveys have also been received from Vision4K and have been incorporated into the geophysical database. The integration and modeling of these new datasets, in conjunction with the previously acquired VTEMTM data, has led to the identification of multiple high-priority drill targets at both the Ducros Gabbro and DUSC target areas, said the company.
At the Ducros Gabbro target, multiple coincident geophysical anomalies occur along and within the distinctive geophysics of the southeast edge of the gabbroic intrusion as well as within the southern tail of the gabbroic body. At the DUSC target area, numerous similar geophysical anomalies have been identified through the analyses of the updated dataset.
With these data sets and new Ni-Cu-PGE drill targets in hand, and with the positive drilling results returned from the Fortin Sill Zone to date, planning is currently underway that will see 20,000 meters of new drilling completed at all three targets in 2023, said the company.
Meanwhile, Québec Nickel said that additional representative core samples have been collected from more recent drilling and will be submitted for petrographic and geological studies.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
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