Renaissance Gold Expands Exploration Potential
RENO, NV - Renaissance Gold Inc. reported results of recent mapping and rock chip sampling support new targets with the potential to significantly expand the Everson Gold Deposit at the Buffalo Canyon Project, Nye County, Nevada. RenGold acquired the property when it became open to staking in late 2012. Based on 40 reverse circulation drill holes in an area 500 meters by 600 meters (about 1,640 by 1,970 feet), the potential quantity of gold in the Everson target area is about 350,000 ounces. This estimate is based on a range from 25,000,000 to 26,000,000 tons at a grade from 0.012 to 0.013 ounces per ton (0.373 to 0.404 grams per ton). The potential quantity and grade is conceptual in nature, and as there has been insufficient exploration to define a mineral resource it is uncertain if future exploration will result in the target being delineated as a mineral resource.
The Everson Deposit is adjacent to the RenGold Buffalo Canyon Project, which reported gold intersections in 8 of 18 drill holes, including 4.6 m of 1.896 g/t Au).
The gold mineralization of the Everson Deposit was discovered by Goldfields Corporation in the course of a regional stream sediment survey in 1992. Further surface mapping, rock chip and soil sampling, and drilling by Goldfields, Santa Fe Pacific Mining Inc., and Nevada Pacific Gold Ltd. confirmed the presence of an intrusion-related gold system hosted by Triassic meta-sedimentary and meta-volcanic rocks and a suite of diuretic to felsic intrusions of unknown age. The trace element suite zoned in and around the mineralized system includes elevated bismuth, tellurium, copper, and molybdenum, a suite often found in intrusive-related gold systems. Low primary magnetite and low magnetic susceptibilities suggest that the intrusions are reduced in oxidation state, and thus belong to a class of intrusion known to be associated with productive gold systems located elsewhere in Nevada and along the North American Cordilleran from Mexico to Alaska.
A detailed ground magnetic survey spanning the entirety of the Buffalo Canyon area shows that a magnetic high forms a 1.8 km-diameter annulus around the intrusive complex at the Everson Deposit. Surface and drilling data indicate that the magnetic high is generated by a broad zone of pyrrhotite that formed within and outward from the gold-enriched zone. The pyrrhotite zone extends northward about 600 meters (2000 feet) beyond the exposed intrusions, indicating that the majority of the intrusive complex remains unexposed and unexplored at shallow to moderate depths. Recent rock chip sampling by RenGold has provided multigram gold assays over the remainder of the magnetic anomaly untested by drilling.
Each of the previous exploration companies drilled holes yielding lengthy intercepts of low-grade gold mineralization. Notably, Nevada Pacific Gold reported in a news release dated August 31, 2005, that 8 of 23 drill holes yielded intercepts exceeding 150 meters at grades of about 0.3 grams per tone (>500 feet of 0.01 opt) and that 7 of these holes were in mineralized rock at their bottom
Historic reports indicate positive recoveries in cyanide shake leach analyses of 75% for unoxidized material and 80% or better for oxide from drill-hole pulps. Bottle roll cyanide leach analyses of surface rock chip samples have returned recoveries exceeding 90%. These results resemble those of other reduced intrusion systems recoveries such as Fort Knox in Alaska, which is low grade but profitable because of good recoveries.
The historical drill holes are concentrated at the southern end of a soil gold anomaly exceeding 16 ppb that extends northeastward for about 1000 meters (3200 feet) along the range front. The area of concentrated drilling lies with a large coherent zone of soil samples exceeding 64 ppb that appears to be derived from a broad zone of intense stock works of amphibole+albite veinlets cut by quartz tourmaline veinlets. Numerous drill holes collared in mineralization and lengthy mineralized road cuts demonstrate that erosion of the mineralized zone at the surface has produced the broad soil anomaly.
Recent confirmation mapping and sampling by RenGold indicates that several steeply-dipping, northwest-striking normal faults cut across the northeast trend of the soil and rock chip anomalies and appear to have faulted the gold system down toward the northeast. This structural setting presents the possibility that the gold-bearing stockwork system exposed in the southern part of the prospect is preserved at depth in a northeastward extension. In addition, the large magnetic anomaly indicates that the causative intrusion for the gold system is not exposed at surface in this area, and that significant zones of gold mineralization, perhaps of higher grade, could lie along the intrusive contact at depth, a setting seen at other productive intrusive-related gold systems in Nevada.
Tim Janke, RenGold's Chief Operating Officer, states: "Our interpretation of the geologic controls has opened the door for dramatic growth of the mineral resource and improvement in grade. This growth coupled with apparently favorable metallurgy bodes well for development of a potentially economic deposit."