Showcase Minerals drilling Dixie Flats-North Star, Nevada

Showcase Minerals Inc. [CSE-SHOW] provided an update on its drill program on the Dixie Flats-North Star gold project located in Elko County, Nevada. The reverse-circulation drill was mobilized on April 24 and the company began drilling on April 25. Drill operations are being conducted by a three-man crew and supervised by Jason Babcock, a geologist with over 20 years of experience.

The objectives of this first hole (DF24-01) were to drill into the north-northesast-oriented S-Fault near the Devils Gate-Webb contact and test if mineralization extends from a similarly located mineralized hole (DX-5) along the S-Fault, and to test the S-Fault at the Webb Devils Gate contact. The hole is oriented at a 300-degree azimuth and minus-55-degree angle. The lithologies that the company encountered include 148 metres of overburden (modelled 142 metres), 117 metres of Chainman formation sandstone and siltstone (modelled 107 metres), and 88 metres of Webb formation carbonaceous and pyritic mudstone with minor siltstone (modelled 19 metres). Showcase desires to complete the hole to the Webb-Devils Gate contact as no drill holes in the hanging wall of the S-Fault on the Showcase claims have tested this contact.

Factors that have affected the drill rate include: The Webb formation-Devils Gate limestone contact is much deeper than the originally modelled 228 metres. Large volumes of water (up to 160 gallons per minute) have been encountered that slow the progression. The current daily drill schedule of 12 hours is limited due to time restrictions during the sage-grouse breeding season.

The second hole in Showcase’s drill program is located 330 metres west of DF24-01 in the S-Fault footwall. The planned azimuth is 286 degrees with a minus-80-degree inclination. The total depth is planned at 152 metres.

A third possible hole is under consideration adjacent to DF24-02 that would be oriented between 270 degrees and a 280-degree azimuth with a similar inclination. The objective is to test the S-Fault at a higher elevation and at nearly right-angles to the fault orientation. Anticipated depths are 360 metres to 370 metres.

Kirk Reed, president, commented: “We are pleased with how drilling has proceeded to date and are encouraged by the fact that we have encountered more Webb formation material than anticipated. The nearby Emigrant Springs mine and the Rain mine deposits are located at the contact point between the Webb mudstone and the underlying Devils Gate limestone. These structures are also on trend with Orla Mining Ltd.’s Dark Star gold deposit.”

The Dixie Flats-North Star property is located on the east side of the Pinon Mountains, 21 air-miles south of the city of Elko in northeast Nevada. It is a combination of two claim blocks, the Dixie Flats group of claims and the North Star group of claims. The property comprises a total of 236 total unpatented mineral claims on federal land administered by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM).

The property lies on the southern margin of the Carlin trend, a northwest-trending belt of sediment-hosted gold deposits that makes up the greatest geographic concentration of gold deposits in North America, with reported production of more than 92.5 million ounces of gold since 1961 (Muntean, 2019).

The Dixie Flats-North Star gold project is approximately three miles south of Newmont Mining’s Emigrant Springs mine, which finished production in 2018, and approximately 4.5 miles southeast of the past-producing Rain mine.

Prior exploration on the Dixie Flats-North Star property has been focused on delineating this contact at depth and discovering possible extensions to the regional structures controlling mineralization at the Rain and Emigrant mines and their demonstrated extension to the Dixie Flats-North Star property.

Showcase has an exclusive option to acquire a 100% interest in Dixie Flats-North Star gold project and the Woodruff gold-vanadium project (subject to various net smelter return royalties ranging from 2.25% to 4.25%), which collectively consist of unpatented 254 lode mining claims covering approximately 1,818 hectares located in Elko County, Nevada.