Marathon Gold hits 1.96 g/t gold over 101 metres at Valentine, Newfoundland
Marathon Gold Corp. [MOZ-TSX; MGDPF-OTC] on Tuesday May 18 released results from the latest batch of exploration drill holes completed at its flagship Valentine Gold Project in central Newfoundland.
The latest results represent fire assay data from 14 drill holes located within the 1.5-kilometre-long Berry Deposit. Drilling highlights include Hole VL-2-991, which intersected 1.96 g/t gold over 101 metres, including 17.88 g/t gold over 3.0 metres, and 1.40 g/t gold over 26 metres, including 18.85 g/t gold over 1.0 metre.
“Today’s assay results represent the last batch of drill holes completed prior to our annual spring shutdown in late March,” said President and CEO Matt Manson. “These are infill holes in the western and central areas of the Berry Deposit, and confirm again long intersections of resource grade mineralization.”
Marathon Gold shares eased on the news, falling 2.3% or $0.07 to $3.00 on volume of $322,100. The shares trade in a 52-week range of $3.35 and $1.50.
The latest batch of results are being announced after Marathon recently reported a maiden resource estimate for the Berry Zone.
The company said it has outlined an inferred resource of 639,000 ounces of gold (11.3 million tonnes at 1.75 g/t). It said 89% of the total estimate is an open pit resource of 566,400 ounces, with the balance associated with underground.
Marathon also flagged a high-grade open pit inferred resource (greater than 0.7 g/t gold cut-off) of 493,700 ounces (5.82 million tonnes at 2.64 g/t gold).
The drill dataset used in this first estimate is still preliminary, with only 42,000 metres included. That compares to 100,000 metres at the Leprechaun Deposit and 170,000 metres at the Marathon Deposit.
“Our drilling at Berry is now directed towards expanding and upgrading this estimate along the full 1.5- kilometre length of the deposit and below the conceptual pit shells used in the estimate, which are relatively shallow at 200 metres deep,” Manson said.
The new 1.5-kilometre Berry Zone, which is located within the six-kilometre-long Sprite Corridor, is situated between the project’s Leprechaun and Marathon deposits.
“With the recently announced additional 50,000 metres of Berry drilling, we expect to have a total of approximately 120,000 metres completed by summer 2022,” Manson said. Exploration drilling has now resumed after the spring break and will continue to the end of the year.
Marathon has said the Berry estimate will not be included in Marathon’s core development plan at Valentine, which is based on two open pits at Marathon and Leprechaun and a central 2.5-4.0 million tonne per year mill.
At some stage in the future Berry could provide options for mine-life extensions or future grade sequencing (pending future permitting).