New Found Gold drills 19 g/t gold over 3.15 metres at Queensway South, Newfoundland
New Found Gold Corp. [NFG-TSXV; NFGC-NYSE American] reported results from its inaugural, 7,250-metre, 33-diamond-drill-hole program at Queensway South (QWS), which began in August, 2022, and was designed to test early-stage exploration targets along an 18.5-km-long stretch of the Appleton fault zone (AFZ), approximately 50 km south of the Keats zone. Queensway South is a contiguous portion of New Found’s 100%-owned Queensway project and covers roughly 65 km of strike extension on the regional Appleton and JBP fault zones across 1,320 km2 of the Queensway project’s total area of 1,662 km2. QWS is easily accessed via the Trans-Canada Highway and a network of forestry roads.
Highlights: Twenty-seven of 33 drill holes hit significant gold mineralization, while 10 drill holes contained visible gold across four target areas. Several new discoveries were made along an 18.5-km corridor that was prioritized due to the amount of gold found in the surficial environment; specific targets tested occur on both sides of the AFZ and exhibit a combination of favourable characteristics, including elevated gold-in-grab, gold-in-till and gold-in-soil samples.
At Pauls Pond, an area covering a high concentration of gold anomalies on both sides of the AFZ, 17 drill holes were completed, leading to three new discoveries, Astronaut, Nova and Nebula, as well as the expansion of the historical Goose zone.
Astronaut and Nova are parallel structures located west of the AFZ that have been traced over 1,600 metres and 250 metres of strike length, respectively. At Astronaut and Nova, eight out of nine holes drilled contained visible gold, including a highlight interval of 19 g/t gold over 3.15 metres in NFGC-QS-22-20. The company believes these two zones connect through to the Goose zone, which, if confirmed, would expand this mineralized corridor to 2.5 km in strike length.
Nebula, the third discovery in the Pauls Pond area, is located on the east side of the AFZ, and drill testing of a prominent gold-in-soil anomaly with two holes identified significant mineralization that is associated with a near-surface shear zone that returned an initial highlight result of 4.92 g/t gold over 3.05 metres in NFGC-QS-22-25.
On the east side of the AFZ, drill testing of two trenched gold-in-soil and gold-in-till anomalies led to two new discoveries: Devils Pond and Devils Pond South. These zones are located 12 km apart, and all drill holes at both targets intersected broad domains of highly anomalous gold, including highlight intervals of 0.47 g/t gold over eight metres and 0.37 g/t gold over 28 metyres in NFGC-QS-22-15 at Devils Pond, and 1.01 g/t gold over 8.8 metres in NFGC-QS-22-30 at Devils Pond South.
Greg Matheson, chief operating officer, stated: “Results from our inaugural drill program at Queensway South exceeded our expectations. The majority of target areas tested led to new discoveries – discoveries generated by New Found applying prospecting, soil/till sampling, mapping, trenching and interpretation of geophysics across the vast claim blocks of QWS. With only a handful of targets tested, the success of this small program demonstrates the potential of this region and supports our thesis that the Queensway project is a district-scale host to gold mineralization. There is a lot of work to be done in advancing these new discoveries and continuing to test new targets generated along the AFZ’s greater than 65 kilometres of largely unexplored strike that falls on the QWS project. The 2023 summer regional exploration program will consist of a follow-up drill program of approximately 10,000 m along with boots-on-the-ground fieldwork to continue to identify new targets and expand on these new discoveries.”
The company is currently undertaking a 500,000-metre drill program at Queensway, and approximately 64,000 mietres of core are currently pending assay results.
New Found holds a 100% in the Queensway project, located 15 km west of Gander, Newfoundland and just 18 km from Gander International Airport. The project is intersected by the Trans-Canada Highway and has logging roads crosscutting the project, high-voltage electric power lines running through the project area, and easy access to a highly skilled work force. The company is well financed for this program, with cash and marketable securities of approximately $60-million as of May 2023.