Mining

Matador Mining stakes more ground in Canada after geophysics work pinpoints new gold targets

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By Robin Bromby - 
Matador Mining ASX MZZ high resolution helimag Cape Ray Gold Project

Following the survey, Matador Mining has staked five more prospective areas totalling 320sq km which will be followed up with auger drilling.

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Newfoundland gold explorer Matador Mining (ASX: MZZ) has added neighbouring ground at its Cape Ray project after preliminary high-resolution helicopter magnetic data identified prospective targets adjoining its existing property.

The company has staked five additional prospective areas, covering a total of 320sq km, after a review of high-resolution geophysics work identified a number of new priority targets.

These will be tested with power augur drilling during the 2021 exploration season.

“The exceptionally high-resolution dataset provides Matador with unprecedented detail of the geology and structural controls on mineralisation below the shallow till cover,” the company said.

Phase one of the latest geophysics program targeted 40km of strike within the central part of the Cape Ray project, an area which includes all Matador’s existing mineral resources and most of its priority exploration targets.

This phase is nearing completion of 16,500 line-kilometres of data between the Big Pond deposit in the southwest and the Benton Five prospect in the northeast.

This is about 40km of strike across the total 120km-long tenement package.

Rock types indicate ‘world class’ gold system

Matador exploration manager Warren Potma said the company is very fortunate in that the rock types across Cape Ray exhibit “significant” magnetic contrasts, thus enabling the geometry to be mapped through shallow till cover.

He said the rock units are cut by faults, shear zones and other structures known to concentrate gold across the project — and these structures are “highly visible” in the magnetic maps.

“It is now evident from these new data that this structural complexity, a key ingredient in world class orogenic gold systems, persists throughout the length of Matador’s Cape Ray project area.”

“These structures were effectively invisible in the less detailed historical magnetics data,” he added.

Next stage will extend gold hunt

Phase two of the helicopter magnetic program will extend the geophysical survey area a further 35km northwest to cover the remaining high priority exploration targets.

This work will take place later this year or in 2022.

Cape Ray was discovered in 1977 and has been explored by several mining companies, with more than 85,000m of drilling having been done (much of that before 1989).

The project is in the south-western area of the Canadian province of Newfoundland, 25km northeast of the coastal town of Port aux Basques.

Matador is the largest holder of ground along the Cape Ray shear, with its tenement boundary located approximately 50km along strike from Toronto-listed Marathon Gold’s 4.2Moz Valentine Lake gold project.