Ardiden putting the pieces together ahead of Canadian gold drilling

Special Report: Ardiden is zeroing in on the areas of greatest gold perspectivity at its Pickle Lake gold project in northwestern Ontario, Canada.

As part of this, the company is undertaking a high-resolution airborne geophysical survey over the entire New Patricia property that will also cover the Esker gold prospect where previous drilling hit gold of up to 12m at 3.2 grams per tonne (g/t) over a 1km trend.

This new survey will provide a modern analysis of the large structural target settings at New Patricia, which Ardiden Limited (ASX:ADV) says will allow follow-up ground testwork and drilling to be focused on areas of the highest gold prospectivity.

High-quality airborne surveys are both cost effective and sensible to undertake before drilling in areas where rock outcrop is sparse and access is challenging, Ardiden noted.

New Patricia is a brownfield (previous explored or mined) exploration area that is directly along strike from Barrick’s historical Golden Patricia gold mine and the company’s Dorothy-Dobie deposit, which has a non-JORC 2012 resource of 99,600 ounces of gold at a grade of 5.7g/t.

Besides Dorothy-Dobie, the gold mineralisation trend running through New Patricia also hosts the historical Golden Patricia underground mine that produced 619,796 ounces of gold at a grade of 15.2g/t before its closure in 1998.

Not the only gold arrow in the quiver

Ardiden is also planning to focus on just one of about 20 structural targets identified along the greater Kasagiminnis structural trend to the east.

It recently mapped out an exploration target of between 4 million and 5.8 million tonnes grading between 3.9g/t and 6.6g/t gold over 2km of a zone that extends over at least 4km of strike.

This zone includes a historical drill intercept of 4.24m at 21g/t gold about 700m south of the existing JORC resource of 110,000 ounces.

Ardiden says this intercept has never been followed-up and may represent a parallel mineralisation trend along the southern shear zone boundary. Drill holes to test this high-grade location have been added to the upcoming summer program.

Fast tracking gold exploration

With the lifting of the State of Emergency and many parts of Ontario moving to phase three of the province’s re-opening plan, Ardiden says that the Ministry of Energy, Northern Development and Mines is now focusing on clearing its backlog of exploration permit applications.

The permits, which are separate from the actual tenements over the resource, will allow the company to kick off drilling at Kasagiminnis.

Ardiden says that any drill holes not completed in summer will be added to the larger winter drill program that is now more substantially funded following the recent $4.5m capital raising.

This story was developed in collaboration with Ardiden, a Stockhead advertiser at the time of publishing.

This story does not constitute financial product advice. You should consider obtaining independent advice before making any financial decisions.