MacDonald Mines rallies on high-grade gold assays

MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd. [BMK-TSXV; MCDMF-OTC] was an active trader Thursday September 26 after the company said drilling at its Scadding Powerline Jovan (SPJ) property near Sudbury, Ontario has intersected high-grade gold.

The company said assay results from the first hole of its inaugural drilling program on the Scadding deposit confirms that that significant high-grade gold mineralization exists in the North Zone of the deposit.

Drilling highlights include 52.02 g/t gold over 12.3 metres, including 210.23 g/t gold over three metres in hole SM-19-001.

“These results exceed our expectations,” said MacDonald Mines President and CEO Quentin Yarie. “They highlight the Iron-Oxide-Copper-Gold potential of the Scadding deposit and confirm that the deposit hosts significant and stacked zones of high graded gold mineralization,” he said.

Yarie said the gold-rich zones also appear to be wider than suggested by historic drilling. “Now that we have our exploration permit in hand, we’ll be able to advance our exploration activities and drilling on the property and further expand the footprint of the Scadding deposit,” he said.

MacDonald shares advanced on the news, rising 11.5% or $0.015 to 14.5 cents on volume of 5.1 million. The shares are currently trading in a 52-week range of $0.025 and 15 cents.

Based in Toronto, MacDonald is focused on precious metals exploration, primarily in Ontario. The company has a 100% interest in the SPJ property, which covers 10,000 hectares, and is located in a polymetallic gold district that remains under explored.

The historic Scadding Mine, located on the SPJ property, produced 144,000 tonnes of ore at a grade of 7.43 g/t gold. The Norstar Mine, located within 500 metres of the Jovan property, produced 63,000 tonnes of ore at a grade of 7.2 g/t gold.

The objective of the current drill program at the Scadding Mine is to confirm and expand the high-grade gold zones at the Scadding deposit. In a bid to target areas of high-grade gold mineralization, MacDonald said it located, as precisely as possible, the historic holes drilled in the deposit by previous operators.  MacDonald also chose drilling targets that could maximize the probability of intersecting multiple gold zones.

The company said drill hole SM-19-001 intersected three gold zones. Each is composed of iron-rich chlorite with variable disseminated sulfides and locally abundant specks of visible gold. Hole SM-19-001 was planned near historic holes and assay results exceed the results reported in all of the nearby holes.

MacDonald said it believes that drilling H-sized core, much larger in size than the BA or the BTW core drilled by previous operators, may account for the increased probability of intersecting zones of coarse gold that is characteristic of the high-grade zones of the Scadding deposit.