X-Terra up 17% on New Brunswick gold update

X-Terra Resources Inc. [XTT-TSXV, XTR-Frankfurt] rallied in active trading Tuesday after the company said it has defined several high priority gold drilling targets on its Grog and Northwest properties, located in Restigouche County, New Brunswick.

The targets were defined as a result of the fieldwork and data processing completed throughout the 2019 exploration program.

X-Terra shares advanced on the news, rising 17.4% or $0.02 to 13.5 cents on volume of 2.15 million. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of $0.07 and 18 cents.

X-Terra is a Quebec-focused gold exploration company. Its flagship Veronneau project lies on the Colomb-Chaboullie greenstone belt about 200 kilometres north of Matagami.

In February, 2019, X-Terra announced a deal with NBGold Inc. that gave X-Terra the option to acquire an interest in 34 mining claims that included the Grog, Rim, Dome and Bonanza mining properties, which are located approximately 30 kilometre southwest of the town of Campbellton. The deal allowed X-Terra to acquire a 70% stake in the properties over a four-year period.

Under the agreement, X-Terra pledged to issue 7.0 million shares to the optioner and spend $3.1 million on exploration. Three of the mining claims are known as the Grog Property, which is subject to a 1% net smelter return royalty payable to the former owner. Dome, Bonanza and Rim are collectively known as the Northwest Property.

X-Terra said it completed its due diligence over the properties in October, 2108, which it said confirmed the potential of a large disseminated gold system at Grog Brook.  It said the best gold values were obtained over the Northwest Property and include 1,205.06 g/t gold at the Rim section of the Northwest Property, 149.97 g/t gold at Bonanza and 47.88 at the Dome section.

On Tuesday, X-Terra said geochemical surveys, a high resolution magnetic survey and induced polarization were completed last year across the Grog and Northwest Properties, in addition to the trenching and structural mapping that produced a first drilling plan.

The company said Grog gold mineralization targets correspond to an area of about six kilometres along the Northeast McKenzie Fault Zone.

The Northwest veins system is located about 25 kilometres further south in a distinct geological environment composed of wacke sediments metamorphosed to the greenschist metamorphism facies.

In this context, low sulfides, free gold-bearing quartz veins are hosted in strongly dipping shear zones marked locally by drag folding.

The objective of the first drill holes is to confirm the position of gold-bearing structures, evaluate the geometrical parameters such as dip and thickness, and recover information that will validate geological controls on gold mineralization.

Six distinct high-priority targets were modeled to be tested first with one or two shallow drill holes. X-Terra Resources’ plan is to drill between one and three shallow holes per target.