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

Nighthawk Gold Corp. Oct. 22 reported wide widths of strong gold mineralization from drilling recently completed at Treasure Island, a target at the north end of the company's Indin Lake gold property in Northwest Territories.

Located 11 kilometers (seven miles) north of Nighthawk's Colomac gold project, Treasure Island lies along the eastern end of a seven-kilometer- (four miles) long underexplored corridor that hosts several high-priority gold showings, including JPK and Laurie Lake.

In 2011, Nighthawk completed a maiden five-hole drill program targeting the Main zone along the southwestern shoreline of Treasure Island.

Highlights from this drilling include 215 meters of 0.74 grams per metric ton gold, over 215 meters, including four meters of 14.43 g/t gold in hole TI11-01B; and 238.4 meters of 0.73 g/t gold, including 0.87 meters of 72.9 g/t gold in TI11-03B.

This year's drill program expanded gold zones identified in 2011 and made several new near-surface discoveries, including several high-grade gold zones.

Nighthawk reports that all sixteen holes cut mineralization, with visible gold observed in fourteen of them.

Highlights from this year's drilling in the Main zone at Treasure Island include:

• 46.25 meters of 3.31 g/t gold in hole T18-04B, including 7.75 meters of 14.2 g/t gold;

• 26.95 meters of 4.45 g/t gold in T18-06B, including 4.2 meters of 25.95 g/t gold; and

• 18.5 meters of 7.37 g/t gold in T18-03B, including 5.25 meters of 22 g/t gold.

The 2018 program also included drilling the first holes into the East zone, a second area of mineralization identified from historical drilling that lies 500 meters east of the Main zone, confirming the historical reports and highlighting its unrealized, yet highly mineralized, potential.

T18-08B, drilled at the East Zone at Treasure Island cut 11.75 meters of 10.78 g/t gold, including 6.5 meters of 19.15 g/t gold.

The area between the Main Zone and East Zone remains largely untested, as does a 4,000-meter area that separates Treasure Island from Laurie Lake to the west, leaving more than 95 percent of this mineralized corridor to be explored.

Nighthawk says Treasure Island represents an incredible new opportunity, as the drilling completed so far has established that high-grade gold mineralization occurs in association with the regional contact zone, clearly pointing to the untapped potential of this largely unexplored mineralized corridor that extends for some seven kilometers (four miles).

"We are very excited with the results from Treasure Island as they continue to reaffirm our original thesis behind consolidating this fertile gold camp at its early stages of evolution," said Nighthawk Gold President and CEO Michael Byron. "The continued exploration success from our satellite targets supports our conviction that the Colomac deposit is not the only multi-million-ounce opportunity, nor the only deposit capable of hosting high-grade mineralization."

Colomac, the main deposit delineated so far at Indin Lake, hosts 50.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.62 grams per metric ton (2.61 million ounces) of gold, according to a resource calculated in May.

Roughly 2.55 million oz of this gold is found at Colomac and Goldcrest, parallel trends of dikes and sills within a larger greenstone belt.

While some of this year's 32,504-meter drill program targeted zones at Colomac, much of the drilling tested high priority targets across the vast Indin Lake gold property.

Nighthawk Gold Corp.

"Our work to date on the Damoti Lake gold deposit, the four Leta Arm gold deposits and showings –North Inca, Diversified, #3, and Lexindin – and now Treasure Island, has confirmed that there are many higher-grade prospects satellite to Colomac. We consider these targets as potential higher-grade feed candidates that could augment any future mining operation at Colomac," Byron said.

"The Indin Lake property is a bonafide gold camp and we look forward with great anticipation to our continued exploration efforts directed at delivering on its vast potential," the Nighthawk Gold CEO added.

–SHANE LASLEY