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Ardiden outlines multiple tier-1 gold targets at the New Patricia prospect
Gold explorer Ardiden Limited (ASX: ADV) announced that its Airborne Geophysical Survey has discovered multiple tier-1 large-scale structural targets at its New Patricia gold prospect within its Pickle Lake Gold Project in northwest Ontario.
The company said that the tier-1 large-scale structural targets for gold mineralisation were defined in detail across Brownfields ground at New Patricia, directly along strike of Barrick’s Golden Patricia underground gold mine.
ADV said that Ardiden’s ‘Esker’ Gold Prospect has now been clearly defined as an 8km-wide ‘Fold-Nose’ target analogous in scale and structure to Newmont’s nearby 5Moz Musselwhite Gold Mine.
The company reported that the significant 8km-long Dilation Shear Zone identified at New Patricia is analogous to Ardiden’s Kasagiminnis Gold Deposit and Barrick’s Koval Gold Deposit.
Ardiden said that the Geophysical Survey has defined multiple other gold targets covering 35km strike length of favourable, under-explored structures, which will greatly assist detailed drill targeting in 2021.
Pickle Lake project
The Pickle Lake Gold Project is 100% owned by Ardiden and is located within the Meen-Dempster greenstone belt and the adjoining Pickle Lake greenstone belt, which contain the known gold deposit (Kasagiminnis) and prospects (South Limb, West Pickle, Dorothy-Dobbie, Meen, Dempster, Fry McVean, Kawashe, Duffell, Relyea, Jean, Keating, 250, and New Patricia).
Ardiden has a maiden high-grade JORC Resource of 790,000 tonnes @ 4.3 g/t for 110,000oz gold for the Kasagiminnis Deposit. Historically, the Pickle Lake region has produced more than 3Moz gold since 1935 from four underground operations; Pickle Crow, Dona Lake, Central Patricia, and Golden Patricia.
With the Kasagiminnis and South Limb Gold Deposits now fully permitted, and with present-day First Nation Agreements in place, Ardiden is executing its plan and steadily growing a Compelling Gold Project in this Tier-1 North American jurisdiction.
New Patricia gold prospect
In January 2020, Ardiden signed an earn-in agreement with Exiro Minerals Corp to acquire the New Patricia Gold Prospect.
The New Patricia Gold Prospect extends over 30km of prospective geological setting directly along strike from the Golden Patricia Gold Mine and adjoins Ardiden’s Dorothy-Dobie Gold Prospect. Barrick’s historical Golden Patricia Gold Mine had produced 619,796 oz @ 15.2g/t Au to 750m below surface until mine closure in 1997.
Airborne geophysical survey at New Patricia
The company reported that a high-resolution Aeromagnetic Radiometer, Radiometric, Matrix Digital VLF-EM Survey airborne geophysical survey was conducted by TerraQuest Limited over the entire New Patricia Prospect in September-October 2020.
The survey included High-Resolution Aeromagnetic, Horizontal Gradiometer, Radiometrics, and Matrix Digital VLF-EM. Exiro provided a dataset of 212 historical drillholes spread across the property drilled by various companies during the period 1971 to 1990.
ADV has now confirmed the completion and receipt of initial data from the Airborne Geophysical Survey. The company said that the survey extended more than 3000 line-kilometres over the entire New Patricia claim to provide detailed and complete coverage of this property.
Tier-1 scale gold deposit targets revealed
Ardiden said that a preliminary review of raw data from the survey over the Company’s New Patricia Gold Prospect has revealed multiple Tier-1 large-scale structural targets analogous to significant high-grade gold mine settings in the area.
Fold-Nose target at Esker gold prospect
The company reported that the most obvious structure revealed in detail by the survey was at the Esker Gold Prospect, located just 3km east along strike of the Golden Patricia underground mine workings.
ADV said that a massive 8km-wide ‘Fold-Nose’ target was evident at Esker. To provide context of scale, the ‘Fold-Nose’ structure revealed at the Esker Gold Prospect is larger in dimension than the Super Pit in Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
The company noted that this Fold-Nose target was analogous in size and structure to Newmont’s 5Moz operating Musselwhite Gold Mine located 140km north of Pickle Lake in a comparable Archean geological setting.
De-magnetised zone
The company said that numerous and more-subtle additional structures like the de-magnetised zone have also been identified from raw data, and are known signatures for gold mineralisation elsewhere at Pickle Lake.
Updates and next steps
Ardiden said that the recent work has confirmed numerous exploration targets exist in the New Patricia prospect and the company has high expectations to define significant gold resources through on-going drilling programs guided by geophysical methods.
Ardiden announced that it will adopt a systematic exploration approach to its entire 664km2 contiguous land holding at Pickle Lake. The company said that this approach involves improving the geological understanding, processing historical data and reports, completing permitting requirements, and pursuing ongoing FN consultations, before taking drill rigs into the various Gold Prospect areas.
ADV said that it plans to process and interpret the data with specialist Geophysical consultants to generate targets for further investigation and drilling in 2021.
The company said that diamond drilling is still progressing at Ardiden’s 100%-owned Kasagiminnis Gold Deposit 20km east of New Patricia. ADV said that it is constantly re-evaluating the controls on gold mineralisation based on current observations and measurements.
Ardiden said that the lessons from one Gold Deposit will be transferred to the next as the Company progressively works its way through its Pipeline of 19 currently-defined Gold Prospects and Deposits to provide the best possible opportunity to make Tier-1 discoveries.
Management comments
Ardiden’s Exploration Manager Dan Grabiec said: “The New Patricia Gold Property is a potential company-maker in its own right. Numerous and exciting kilometre-scale geological features have now been delineated for the first time with this modern-day, high-tech Geophysical Survey.
The New Patricia brownfields gold property is vastly unexplored with good winter access. We are seeing incredible structural detail over a regional scale thanks to Ardiden’s aggregation of adjoining gold Properties. I’m genuinely excited for the time when we commence drilling and see what monsters are potentially hiding below the surface.”
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