Westhaven gold assays point to prospectivity of B.C. project
Westhaven Ventures Inc. [WHN-TSXV; WTHVF-OTC] on Tuesday January 16 reported impressive gold assays from its Shovelnose property near Merritt, southern British Columbia. Westhaven holds a 100% interest in over 32,000 hectares of ground within the Spences Bridge Gold Belt (SBGB), an area that the company believes is highly prospective for epithermal type gold mineralization.
The 18,768-hectare Shovelnose property is located near the southern end of the SBGB and borders a major B.C. highway known as the Coquihalla. The proximity to highway infrastructure permits year-round exploration at the property.
The assays released Tuesday are from a drill program comprised of seven holes, or 3,269 metres that confirmed the existence of a new quartz vein system known as the Alpine South Zone. It was first outlined by ground magnetics as a northeast trending mag low anomaly and has been confirmed by two of the drill holes.
Drill hole SN17-06, the most southwestern of the two holes, intersected 85 metres of 0.52 grams gold per tonne, including eight metres of 1.43 grams gold and 17 metres of 1.02 grams gold.
Drill hole SN17-07 intersected 231 metres of 0.17 g/t gold, including 23.8 metres grading 0.8 g/t gold, which in turn includes 5.7 metres grading 2.5 g/t gold and four metres grading 3.23 g/t gold.
“The newly discovered Alpine South Zone is approximately 1,000 metres in potential strike and is open to the northeast and southwest where the ground magnetic survey ended in June of 2017,” said Westhaven President and CEO Gren Thomas.
Thomas is a former Welsh coal miner who is best known for his role in discovering one of Canada’s richest diamond deposits in the Northwest Territories. At that time of the Diavik diamond discovery, Thomas was running Aber Resources Ltd.
“This is the most significant discovery made to date at Shovelnose and we are keen to get back there as soon as practicable,” he said.
Immediate plans include starting a ground magnetic survey to gauge the potential size of this interpreted structure. That will be followed by winter drilling.
The company said it is management’s belief that these newly identified gold mineralized structures in the Alpine South Zone are likely the feeder zones responsible for the gold mineralization found near surface in the Alpine Zone. This quartz vein system remains open along strike to the northeast and southwest. The broader zone of gold mineralization and associated metre-scale quartz veins (to 4.3 metres width) remains open to the southwest.
This target is just the southernmost extent of drill testing along the 1,000-metre long north-south trending Alpine Zone, which has had only limited shallow drilling to date.
On Tuesday, Westhaven shares eased 20% or $0.03 to 12 cents. The 52-week range is 7 cents and 17 cents.