X-Terra steps up New Brunswick gold drilling

X-Terra Resources Inc. [XTT-TSXV; XTR-FSE] shares rallied on Wednesday January 22 after the company said it is planning to do additional drilling on high priority targets on its Grog and Northwest properties, located in Restigouche County, New Brunswick.

The targets were defined as a result of the fieldwork and data processing completed during exploration in 2019.

X-Terra shares advanced on the news, rising 19% or $0.02 to 12.5 cents on active volume of almost 1.5 million. The shares are trading in a 52-week range of $0.07 and 18 cents.

X-Terra is a Quebec-focused gold exploration company. Its flagship Veronneau Project lies on the Colomb-Chaboullie greenstone belt about 200 km north of Matagami.

X-Terra currently has the option to acquire an interest in 34 mining claims that included the Grog, Rim, Dome and Bonanza mining properties, which are located approximately 30 km southwest of the town of Campbellton. It can acquire a 70% stake in the properties over four years.

Under an agreement, X-Terra pledged to issue 7.0 million shares to the optionor and spend $3.1 million on exploration. Three of the mining claims are known as the Grog property, which is subject to a 1% net smelter return royalty payable to the former owner. Dome, Bonanza and Rim are collectively known as the Northwest property.

X-Terra said it completed its due diligence over the properties in October, 2018, which it said confirmed the potential of a large disseminated gold system at Grog Brook. It said the best gold values were obtained over the Northwest property and include 1,205.06 g/t gold at the Rim section of the Northwest property, 149.97 g/t gold at Bonanza and 47.88 g/t at the Dome section.

X-Terra recently said geochemical surveys, a high-resolution magnetic survey and induced polarization were completed last year across the Grog and Northwest properties, in addition to the trenching and structural mapping that produced a first drilling plan.

The company said Grog gold mineralization targets correspond to an area of about six km along the Northeast McKenzie Fault Zone.

The Northwest veins system is located about 25 km further south in a distinct geological environment composed of wacke sediments metamorphosed to the greenschist metamorphism facies.

In this context, low sulfides, free gold-bearing quartz veins are hosted in strongly-dipping shear zones marked locally by drag folding.

The objective of the first drill holes was to confirm the position of gold-bearing structures, evaluate the geometrical parameters such as dip and thickness, and recover information that will validate geological controls on gold mineralization.

X-Terra has previously said that six distinct high-priority targets were modelled to be tested first with one or two shallow drill holes. The company was planning to drill between one and three shallow holes per target.

However, based on the success and observations in the field, the company said it has decided to add additional holes to certain targets in order to gain a better understanding of the underlying geological system and mineralized corridors.