Canagold sees ‘blue sky potential’ at New Polaris
Canagold Resources Ltd. [CCM-TSX, CRCUF-OTCQB, CANA-FRA] on Wednesday said recent drilling has shown that the mineralized system at the company’s 100%-owned New Polaris gold project in northwestern British Columbia extends to depths beyond 600 metres.
New Polaris is the flagship asset of Canagold, which recently changed its name from Canarc Resources The project is located 100 kilometres south of Atlin and 60 kilometres northeast of Juneau Alaska. It consists of 61 contiguous Crown-granted mineral claims and one modified grid claim covering 850 hectares.
New Polaris was mined via underground methods from 1938 to 1942, and again from 1946 to early 1951, producing 250,000 ounces of gold from 740,000 tonnes of ore at an average grade of 10.3 g/t gold. Three main veins (AB, C and Y) were mined to a maximum depth of 150 metres and have been traced by drilling for up to 1,000 metres along strike and 800 metres down dip. They are still open for expansion.
The project is currently estimated to contain an indicated resource of 586,000 ounces of gold at 10.8 g/t and an inferred resource of 485,000 ounces at a grade of 10.2 g/t, material that could support production of 80,000 ounces of gold annually for 8.7 years, according to a March, 2019, preliminary economic assessment (PEA).
Canagold launched a 24,000-metre, 47-hole drill program last year. The focus was infill and step-out drilling in the C West Main (CWM) vein system, which hosts a major part of the gold resource at New Polaris.
On Wednesday, the company said drill crews have intersected a deep extension of the C-West Main Vein and discovered a new high-grade parallel C-Vein.
The company said assay results include samples from the deep exploration drill hole (21-2025E1) and two wedge holes (21-2025E1W1 and 21-2025E1W1A) that emanated from it as well as another hole (21-1783E4) that targeted just down dip from the currently defined resources.
These drill holes successfully intersected the extension of the C-West Main and other mineralized C-Veins, including a previously undrilled vein at 333.1 metres down hole 21-2025W1, with samples assay results returning multiple intercepts of significant gold mineralization.
Highlights include 21-2025E1, which returned 17.6 g/t gold over 1.5 metres from 379.1 metres down hole, including 30.8 g/t gold over 0.6 metres from 379.6 metres, and 4.00 g/t gold over 3.1 metres from 1,018.9 metres.
“These results give us the incentive to conduct further drilling below the 600-metre level to expand resources,” said Canagold CEO Scott Eldridge. He said confirmation that the mineralized system extends beyond depths of 600 metres of the currently defined resources, “confirms the blue-sky potential of the project.”
All of the planned 47 holes of the originally proposed 24,000-metre infill drill program were completed by the end of 2021. Assay results have been received for 32 holes. However, Canagold said more drilling will be needed to fully delineate the extension of CWM to depth and the extent to additional mineralized C-veins to define additional mineralized resources.
On March 1, 2022, Canagold shares closed unchanged at 39 cents and now trade in a 52-week range of 70 cents and 35 cents.