Matador Mining reveals early success from Cape Ray gold drilling
Matador is confident of several new diamond drill targets in Newfoundland based on visual inspection of core samples alone.
Junior explorer Matador Mining (ASX: MZZ) has revealed promising observations from a recently started drilling campaign at its 100% owned Cape Ray gold project in Newfoundland, Canada.
The company announced the start of its 2021 exploration season at Cape Ray a fortnight ago and today reported the completion of the first 230 holes of a power-auger drilling program.
The program is initially focusing on 14 priority targets between the Window Glass Hill and Big Pond deposits that were generated from interpretation of ground magnetics and historic surface geochemistry.
The first area of focus is the Window Glass Hill Granite, a known host to gold mineralisation at the Window Glass Hill deposit and the 2020 Angus discovery.
Encouraging visual results
According to the company, initial observations of multiple bottom-of-hole auger core samples have confirmed sulphide-bearing quartz veins and strong alteration, similar to gold mineralisation in diamond drill core from the Window Glass Hill deposit.
All core samples collected to-date will be assayed using multi-element geochemistry to identify basement mineralisation footprints that typically extend up to 100m away from mineralised gold deposits across the project.
Matador executive chairman Ian Murray said the results so far mark a “very strong start” to the 2021 field season.
“A large portion of the Window Glass Hill Granite area has now been tested with encouraging visual results returned from bottom of hole core samples.”
Potential for several new diamond drilling targets
Mr Murray said while assay results from the samples are expected during the quarter, the team is confident based on visual inspection alone that several new diamond drilling targets have been identified.
“With new exploration work programs ramping up every week, this promises to be an extremely busy period for the company on multiple fronts,” he added.
The Cape Ray project covers 120km of continuous strike along the highly prospective but underexplored Cape Ray shear in Newfoundland.
Matador’s exploration program at the project will be the company’s largest ever with more than 20,000m of drilling planned.
Exploration activities started three months earlier than previous years, also making it Matador’s first winter program at Cape Ray. Work is expected to continue through the northern winter and into 2022.