Second Core Drill To Test High-Grade Zone At Rising Fawn Area
VANCOUVER – Arizona Gold & Silver Inc. reported on the contracting of a second core drill for its Philadelphia Gold-Silver Property in Arizona. This additional drill will focus on testing the high-grade zone at the Rising Fawn target area, where access limitations have previously hindered drilling with conventional rigs.
The newly contracted core drill is specially designed to drill horizontal and shallow-angle holes at inclinations of less than 45 degrees, a capability not possible with standard drill rigs. This method is essential for obtaining subsurface data from beneath a high cliff face of mineralized material that is not easily accessible from the top of the ridge.
Earlier this year, the Company announced channel sampling from a recently exposed, historic 51.8-meter-long drift. The results revealed 30.5 meters grading 2.33 grams per tonne (g/t) gold and 15.27 g/t silver starting at the adit entrance. Due to safety concerns, the sampling excluded a 30-meter deep winze located on the high-grade hanging wall (HW) vein. The reported 30.5-meter interval was followed by 18.28 meters grading 0.59 g/t gold and 3.74 g/t silver. In total, the drift intersected 48.78 meters grading 1.68 g/t gold and 10.95 g/t silver, with a true width of approximately 44.21 meters.
The combination of these channel sampling results, along with historic drilling and surface mapping, indicates that the high-grade zones within the thicker overall mineralized interval at Rising Fawn are steeply dipping, making them unsuitable for traditional vertical or steeply inclined drilling. Horizontal holes are the optimal method for intersecting these steeply dipping, high-grade vein structures.
Currently, there are no drill holes down-dip from the aforementioned adit. The new drilling program, consisting of 12 planned horizontal and shallow-angle holes, will test the area immediately down-dip of the historic drift. Preliminary grade modeling suggests a potential plunge to the high-grade intercepts, and this drilling campaign will also assess this interpretation of the grade distribution.
Additionally, a short adit located nearby exposes the HW vein, where channel sampling returned 1.5 meters grading 20.4 g/t gold and 20.5 g/t silver. The full interval from 0 to 10.67 meters assayed 3.49 g/t gold and 12.33 g/t silver. This area will also be included in the upcoming drilling program.
Greg Hahn, VP of Exploration, said, “By drilling this high-grade portion of the system, we aim to gather the necessary data for resource modeling and gain a better understanding of the detailed distribution of grade within the overall mineralized zone at Rising Fawn.”
The first core hole at the Red Hills Target has been completed, with a second core hole currently in progress. This drilling is targeting the hydrothermally altered Red Hills flow dome. The first hole confirmed the geologic model derived from previous reverse circulation drilling and CSAMT geophysical data, encountering strong clay alteration above a thick interval of quartz stockwork in both porphyritic rhyolite and underlying granite. Drill core samples will be sent to the laboratory shortly for analysis, and assay results are eagerly anticipated.