North of 60 Mining News - The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North

Sabina Gold & Silver Corp. July 5 reported the start of a 10,000-meter summer drill program at the Goose Property on the company's Back River gold project in Nunavut

Following a 6,000-meter spring program, the key focus of the summer drilling is to follow up on the previous success at the Umwelt "Vault" and the Llama Extension targets, as well as further testing of the Goose Main extension target (Nuvuyak). This drilling is complimented with a series of field exploration programs that will consist of regional and detailed geologic mapping, geochemistry, and geophysics.

"Our strategy to discover and expand zones of high-grade mineralization at our Llama and Umwelt underground resource areas continues to add value and highlight the 'blue sky' potential at Back River. We have demonstrated that the gold structures at the Goose property have significant strike lengths with potential for considerable extension and we have also demonstrated that high grade zones within these gold structures are not uncommon," said Sabina Gold President and CEO Bruce McLeod.

In 2015, the company submitted applications to develop and operate a 3,000-metric-tons-per-day mine at Goose, one of the properties that comprise the larger Back River project.

The proposed mine on the Goose property is forecast to produce roughly 2.3 million ounces of gold over an 11.8-year mine life.

The Goose property hosts 5.33 million ounces of gold in the measured and indicated resource categories along a 5,000-meter-long trend, most of which is found in the Umwelt and Llama zones.

Deeper high-grade extensions of both gold zones have been identified.

This year's drilling at Umwelt continues to test the high-grade potential at Vault to better define the size, continuity and grade of this prospective zone.

Two holes drilled during the spring program – 18GSE532 and 18GSE534 – aimed at better understanding potential for continuity between the Vault Zone and the previously discovered G2 Zone, which is roughly 200 meters above.

Hole 18GSE532 cut 23.9 meters averaging 6.37 grams per metric ton gold and 18GSE534 cut 17.4 meters averaging 5.24 g/t gold.

These intercepts were between Vault and G2, and were successful in demonstrating increased continuity north of the Vault zone.

Two holes are planned for Vault during the summer campaign to continue to further define additional resource potential by targeting high grade extension opportunities at the Umwelt deposit.

Building on last year's results, spring drilling at the Llama Extension zone continued to outline a significant high-grade gold endowment within a rapidly growing and important target area. Significant step-out drilling in 2017 confirmed high-grade Llama mineralization roughly 540 meters down plunge from the existing Llama underground resource. Spring drilling successfully tested the gap between the step-out and the bottom of the resource.

Highlights from the spring drilling in this Llama Extension zone include 5.65 meters of 28.95 g/t gold in hole 18GSE535 and 23.25 meters of 15.67 g/t gold in 18GSE530

This high-grade Llama Extension zone has been drilled over 120 meters in length and remains open for expansion.

Two drill holes were completed earlier this year at the Nuvuyak target, situated roughly 700 meters down plunge to the west of the Goose Main deposit, encountered the key Back River discovery indicators. Sabina said these initial vectoring holes represents a fundamental step in forwarding the company's exploration approach for the target.

Additional drilling will continue to test this 2,000-meter trend that remains open both along strike and down plunge.

Sabina said this target represents an excellent opportunity for continued discovery and growth similar to recent successes at the Umwelt and Llama deposits.

Summer drilling will also test the Echo-Kogoyok trend, a target that remains a highly underexplored portion of the Goose property and has many exploration elements analogous to local gold resource settings found there.

"All our existing deposits at Goose are open and numerous exploration targets have been identified on the six-kilometer (3.7 miles) trend of this 80-kilometer (50 miles) district," said McLeod. "We look forward to the continued delineation of these zones and to the potential discovery of new high value zones at targets such as Nuvuyak and Echo-Kogoyak."

–SHANE LASLEY