Matador Mining boosts landholding around Cape Ray gold project
Matador is now reviewing historic data prior to beginning exploration over the new ground.
Junior explorer Matador Mining (ASX: MZZ) has increased its landholding in Canada’s Newfoundland mining district by 37% to 750 square kilometres following a strategic review of the ground immediately surrounding its Cape Ray gold project as well as prospects within the broader region.
The company’s existing acreage has been boosted by 278sq km comprising the Hermitage project, and two new blocks covering prospective ground to the west of the current tenement package have added a further 127sqkm.
Hermitage sits to the east of Cape Ray and along 27km of continuous strike on the Hermitage Flexure, a large crustal scale structure which is a splay off the main Cape Ray Shear Zone (CRSZ).
The region was identified as highly-prospective for gold exploration following a review of targets in Newfoundland which have strong exploration potential but have been neglected historically.
Hermitage is believed to be in a similar structural setting to New Found Gold’s high-grade Queensway discovery and Labrador Gold Corp’s Kingsway project.
Regional exploration by Teck, Falconbridge and INCO in the late 1980s included geochemical analysis which defined a large area of anomalous gold, arsenic and antimony.
Matador is now reviewing historical high-resolution airborne magnetics, electro-magnetics and radiometrics data as the basis for target generation prior to commencing an exploration program.
New blocks
A comprehensive review of areas contiguous with Matador’s existing tenements has resulted in the acquisition of two new blocks.
Block 1 sits north-west of Cape Ray’s Central Zone and Window Glass Hill deposits in an area which hosts a major structure parallel to the CRSZ.
It is also nearby to other major cross structures, with gold pathfinder anomalism in historic surface samples.
Given the proximity of Block 1 to Matador’s current work program, the company said it would complete heli-magnetics and multi-element geochemistry over the area at the same time.
Block 2 is immediately north of the Malachite Lake prospect and has been identified as a north-east trending splay off the CRSZ.
Heli-magnetics will be flown over this area in coming months, with geochemistry likely to be completed next year.
Pipeline of targets
Executive chairman Ian Murray said the new additions were part of Matador’s strategy to continuously improve and build upon a pipeline of future exploration targets in the region.
“Newfoundland has become one of the most exciting jurisdictions for gold exploration in North America [and] it has put a spotlight on gold prospectivity resulting in a staking rush and a significant increase in exploration activity,” he said.
“While we believe we already have one of the region’s most attractive and underexplored packages, [these] tenement acquisitions are aligned with our strategy of building a sustainable pipeline of highly-prospective gold targets throughout Newfoundland.”