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

Avidian Gold Corp. Jan. 19 announced results from eight of the 17 reverse-circulation drill holes completed on the Mayflower Extension Zone at its district-scale Golden Zone project in Southcentral Alaska.

"We are extremely pleased with the success of the 2021 drill campaign at MEZ," said Avidian Gold President and CEO Steve Roebuck. "The results received to date demonstrate the high potential for the continued discovery of near-surface gold mineralization to the Breccia Pipe deposit."

Located about six miles (10 kilometers) west of the Parks Highway, midway between Anchorage and Fairbanks, Golden Zone hosts several precious and base metal targets along a roughly 12-mile (19 kilometer) trend.

Breccia Pipe, the most advanced of the Golden Zone targets, is a deposit with 4.19 million metric tons of indicated resource averaging 1.99 grams per metric ton (267,000 ounces) gold and 10.36 g/t (1.4 million oz) silver.

The primary objective of the 17-hole 2021 MEZ drill program was to continue defining mineralization, as it is believed to have the highest potential to add additional gold ounces proximal to Breccia Pipe.

In an October announcement, Avidian said it would consider undertaking a preliminary resource if assay results were positive, to add to the already existing NI 43-101 compliant resource at Breccia Pipe.

Assay results speak for themselves, with highlights received from the northeast 300-meter portion of MEZ including:

• 46.63 meters grading 1.08 g/t gold, including 15.24 meters grading 2.03 g/t gold in hole GZ21RC-02.

• 4.57 meters grading 2.87 g/t gold in hole GZ21RC-03.

• 7.62 meters grading 1.55 g/t gold in hole GZ21RC-26.

• 50.29 meters grading 0.70 g/t gold, including 7.62 meters grading 2.52 g/t gold, in hole GZ21RC-27.

"The drill program tested shallow gold mineralization along a 600-meter strike length and confirms that mineralization remains open along strike and at depth," added Roebuck. "We are also encouraged that many of the holes intersected multiple mineralization zones, and two holes including our longest intersection in GZ21RC-02, ended in gold mineralization."

In 2021, Avidian drilled 1,776.8 meters in seventeen shallow reverse-circulation holes at MEZ as part of a resource expansion program. This campaign was designed to follow-up on the 2017 discovery of the previously unknown mineralized conglomerate tested by drill hole GZ17-10, which intersected 21.6 meters grading 1.46 g/t gold and is located just 300 meters northeast of Breccia Pipe.

Additional holes drilled at MEZ in 2018 include GZ18-02 – approximately 50 meters southwest of GZ17-10 – that intersected an upper zone of 5.74 meters grading 3.72 g/t gold, and a mineralized zone that appears, Avidian reports, "to correspond to the intersection hole in GZ17-10 that returned 17.7 meters of 2.12 g/t gold."

GZ18-02 ended in mineralization with an intersection of 17.7 meters grading 1.04 g/t gold.

"The consistency of the structural setting along northeast trends at the MEZ and the associated replacement style of mineralization continues to drive our exploration efforts," finished Roebuck.

Additional assays are pending for the remaining nine RC holes in the southwestern portion of MEZ. Drill hole results were not received in numerical order due to utilization of multiple preparation facilities to speed up assay turnaround times due to COVID-related backlogs.