Midland Continues To Discover New High-Grade Gold Zones On Willbob
MONTREAL - Midland Exploration inc. reported the most recent results of its exploration campaign on the Willbob project, located about 70 km west of Kuujjuaq. The most significant results are: High-grade values of 250.10 g/t Au, 40.10 g/t Au, 24.80 g/t Au in grab samples from the new Wayne showing; 1.37 g/t Au / 6.10 m in a channel, from the new Didgeridoo gold zone; 36.40 g/t Au / 0.50 m in drillhole WB-17-18 from the Sunshine zone; and 2.56 g/t Au, 0.508% Cu and 0.153% Co / 0.45 m in drillhole WB-17-22 from the Stars massive sulfide showing.
Midland is very encouraged by the results of the 2017 campaign. Many new gold showings, some high-grade, were discovered on the project in 2017. Furthermore, detailed geological mapping of the gold showings has positively identified most of them as orogenic gold, which is one of the most significant types of gold deposits worldwide. The Labrador Trough can now be considered as a newly recognized orogenic gold belt that is almost totally unexplored for gold. The Willbob project itself, which covers almost 700 km2 of favorable rocks and structures, is still mostly unexplored. Midland will continue to investigate this important new emerging gold belt in 2018, with an intensive prospection campaign, mechanical stripping of mineralized zones found in 2017, and additional drilling of the best targets.
The Wayne showing was first identified in August 2017, with two grab samples separated by about 200 meters that returned 32.7 g/t Au and 2.47 g/t Au, in an area that was not explored previously. First, a very high value of 250.10 g/t Au was obtained from a single, isolated sample located about 225 meters south-east of the initial 32.7 g/t Au value. Re-sampling of the original 32.7 g/t Au location yielded 6.54 g/t Au, while values of 40.10 g/t Au, 24.80 g/t Au, 1.94 g/t Au, 1.81 g/t Au, 1.56 g/t Au were obtained from grab samples collected in a 10 meters radius around the original sample. Note that grab samples are selective by nature and values reported may not be representative of mineralized zones. Another grab sample collected about 25 meters south also yielded 1.15 g/t Au. Mineralization in the Wayne showing area consists in a quartz diorite that contains numerous mm- to cm-thick quartz veinlets; the veinlets and the wallrock are mineralized in pyrrhotite with usually no arsenopyrite. Ten (10) samples out of 29 samples collected from the Wayne area yielded more than 1 g/t Au, with three additional ones yielding between 0.1 and 1 g/t Au.
The new Didgeridoo gold zone is located about 15 kilometers southeast of Osisko/Barrick's Pump Pad Ridge gold showing, and about 70 kilometers south of Midland's Golden Tooth zone. It is part of a new claim block staked in January 2017. Channel samples on Didgeridoo yielded 1.37 g/t Au / 6.1 m. Several grab samples collected north and south of this channel along the zone also yielded significant gold values: 2.77 g/t Au, 1.82 g/t Au and 0.62 g/t Au located between 15 and 40 meters north of the channel, and 2.35 g/t Au, 1.35 g/t Au, 1.235 g/t Au, 1.20 g/t Au and 0.63 g/t Au from 15 to 25 meters south. The Didgeridoo zone appears to be at least 60 meters long by 5 to 10 meters wide, and is open to the south. It is a shear zone with abundant fault-filling quartz-calcite veins and veinlets, along with minor disseminated pyrrhotite within the veins and in the strongly chloritized host gabbro. Six (6) grab samples out of 19 at Didgeridoo yielded more than 1 g/t Au, and four (4) samples also yielded between 0.1 and 1.0 g/t Au. Following the discovery, Midland acquired 8 adjacent claims that contain an historical gold showing that returned up to 2.8 g/t Au in grab sampling, located on-strike about 500 meters northwest of Didgeridoo.
Several additional gold showings were also discovered in the Fall 2017 campaign and include (grab samples): the Cross Lake Showing (8.82 g/t Au, 39.20 g/t Ag; 1.28 g/t Au; 1.03 g/t Au), the Nak showing (6.26 g/t Au), the Lac H showing (1.75 g/t Au) and the West Smokey Bear showing (2.35 g/t Au; 2.21 g/t Au; 2.16 g/t Au; 1.23 g/t Au).
The objective of the 2017 drilling campaign was primarily to test several arsenopyrite-bearing gold showings within shear zones, found in the northern corner of the project (Golden Tooth, Polar Bear, GTN, Kuni and Kuurok showings). A total of ten (10) holes totaling 3116 meters tested these shear zones. One (1) hole 189 meters deep tested the quartz-ankerite brittle veins and breccias of the Sunshine showing. Three (3) more holes also tested the Stars gold-bearing volcanogenic massive sulfide prospect at a very shallow depth (less than 25m vertical depth), for a total of 186 meters.
Drillhole WB-17-18 tested the Sunshine showing (up to 7.16 g/t Au in surface grab sampling in 2016). Sunshine represents a different mineralization style compared to the arsenopyrite-bearing shear zones mentioned previously; it contains no arsenopyrite and is hosted within brittle structures and breccias instead of ductile-brittle shears. WB-17-18 intersected three gold-bearing intervals: 36.40 g/t Au / 0.50 m, 1.99 g/t Au / 0.45 m, and 0.50 g/t Au / 1.05 m, all found between 96.35 and 107.55 meters. Unless otherwise stated, all drill intersections reported in this press release are hole lengths; true thicknesses cannot be determined at this time for most intersections. Mineralization consists in a non-sheared, altered diorite containing un-mineralized quartz veins, with pyrite and pyrrhotite in the wallrock of the veins. Hole WB-17-18 confirms that the Sunshine showing is a newly recognized mineralization style that has the potential for high gold grades. The mineralized zone intersected in WB-17-18 is still open in all directions.
Holes WB-17-09, 10 and 11 tested the extensions of the Golden Tooth gold-arsenopyrite shear zone, that returned up to 3.1 g/t Au / 1.7 m in 2016 drilling. All three holes successfully intersected the zone. Hole WB-17-11 tested the zone on a section located 100m northwest of WB-16-05, and yielded 2.23 g/t Au / 1.25 m (0.91 m true width). Hole WB-17-09 tested the southwestern extension of the zone at depth, and returned 0.422 g/t Au / 2.15 m (1.32 m true width) between 280.85 and 283 meters. Finally, hole WB-17-10 tested the zone on a section 100 meters southeast of WB-16-07; it yielded 0.81 g/t Au / 1.95 m (1.43 m true width). The Golden Tooth zone was demonstrated to be at least 250 meters long on surface, continuous over more than 300 meters downdip, and is still open in all directions. Field and core observations indicate it is a classic, orogenic-style, gold-arsenopyrite shear zone, typical of many major gold deposits worldwide.
Hole WB-17-13 tested the Kuurok arsenopyrite-bearing shear zone (up to 14.5 g/t Au in grab sample); it yielded 3.50 g/t Au / 0.35 m. In the Polar Bear area, hole WB-17-14 intersected an arsenopyrite-bearing shear zone near a diorite/mudstone contact that yielded 0.73 g/t Au / 2.7 m. In the Kuni area, numerous quartz-arsenopyrite tension veins scattered over tens of meters yielded 1.82 g/t Au / 0.55 m, 2.54 g/t Au / 0.35 m meters as well as many weakly anomalous Au values.
Holes WB-17-20, 21 and 22 tested the Stars gold-bearing massive sulfide prospect at a very shallow depth (maximum of 25 meters vertical depth). Holes WB-17-21 and 22 were drilled from the same drill setup but at different angles. Both holes intersected the massive sulfide lens. WB-17-21 yielded 0.40 g/t Au, 0.79% Cu and 0.046% Co / 1.9 m, in pyrrhotite-rich massive sulfides. WB-17-22 yielded 0.49 g/t Au, 0.59% Cu and 0.042% Co / 4.55 m, including 2.56 g/t Au, 0.51% Cu and 0.153% Co over 0.45 m in pyrite-rich massive sulfides. A section of sulfides-rich black shales further down also yielded 0.28 g/t Au / 5.65 m. Hole WB-17-20, drilled on a section 25 meters to the southeast, narrowly missed the massive sulfide lens because of a surface erosion feature.