Special report: Matador Mining is already growing the gold resource at its Cape Ray project in Canada and it is only the first drill program.

Maiden drilling has extended the mineralisation outside of the current resource, with the 15 holes completed so far all intersecting gold.

The program also returned several high-grade gold hits including 1.6m at 24.36 grams per tonne (g/t), 2m at 13.3g/t and 2m at 6.19g/t.

Anything over about 5g/t is generally considered high-grade.

The Cape Ray project has a JORC resource of about 13.4 million tonnes at 1.75g/t gold and 6.3g/t silver containing 750,000 ounces of gold and 2.7 million ounces of silver.

JORC refers to the mining industry’s official code for reporting exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves, managed by the Australasian Joint Ore Reserves Committee.

The resource is hosted on only a small central portion, totalling about 3km of the consolidated 65km of highly prospective ground along the Cape Ray Shear.
“The purpose of this 4000m diamond drill program was to test the extensions of the known deposits and follow up historical drilling in areas where no resource has been defined, with the intention of growing the recent JORC resource of 750,000 ounces of gold,” managing director Paul Criddle explained.

The company plans to release further results in the coming weeks.

Matador’s Cape Ray Gold Project is hosted within the regionally significant Cape Ray Shear that extends across the province of Newfoundland in Canada’s northeast.

“Initial assay results indicate this program has been successful with all holes completed to date, intersecting gold mineralisation with the same style of mineralisation confirmed outside of the resource areas.”
Drilling between the 04 and 41 Zones has successfully confirmed this area does contain mineralisation with high-grade gold intercepts having been encountered.

“These results are in line with our expectations, as the mineralisation at both deposits is present in the consistent widths and geological setting, with multiple lodes extending the mineralised envelope into the gap,” Mr Criddle said.

Growing early stage prospects

Drilling has also shown the potential to grow the resource further with additional exploration on early stage prospects.

Of particular interest to Matador is the H and PW zones.

“The drilling at both the H and PW Zones, areas where limited historical drilling has been completed, again indicates the presence of gold mineralisation, in a confirmatory geological setting as that of the prior work and indicates that there is potential for inaugural resources at these prospects,” Mr Criddle said.

“This shallow drilling is encouraging, in that it seems to point to more open pit-able mineralisation being identified very close by the existing resources at the project.”

Mr Criddle said the proximity of the H Zone to the 04 deposit is very encouraging as there is little historic drilling between these areas.

“So we are excited by the mineralisation extending along strike,” he said.

Multi-million-ounce opportunity

Mr Criddle describes the Cape Ray Project, which is located in Newfoundland, as a “ready-made development story”.

He believes Matador is more than capable of eventually expanding the project to a multi-million-ounce inventory.

Matador completed the acquisition of the Cape Ray project in early July, and even before it started drilling in mid-August the company had already uncovered new zones of mineralisation that led to an increase in the resource.

The Cape Ray project is located along the same Cape Ray Shear as the 3.2-million-ounce Valentine Lake Project owned by Marathon Gold and First Mining Gold’s Hope Brook mine, which historically produced 752,000 ounces.

The area also hosts a number of high-grade gold discoveries, with grades of up to 213g/t uncovered by one company during grab sampling.

Matador has almost completed the 36-hole drilling program and expects to have the results on the north and south sectors, along with further results on the central sectors, in the coming weeks.

 

Matador Mining is a Stockhead advertiser.

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