Special Report: A maiden drill program is kicking off at Hawkstone’s (ASX:HWK) flagship high-grade Lone Pine gold project in the US state of Idaho, with a diamond drilling rig mobilised to site today.

The advanced Lone Pine project, acquired by Hawkstone in February, comes with a non-compliant JORC resource estimate of 71,178oz grading over 18 grams per tonne (g/t) based on historical work done in 1935.

Subsequent studies consider this estimate to be conservative.

That’s because Lone Pine has never been drilled, ever. Many mining projects that stopped production prior to the 1950s — about the time the global mining industry began using ‘high-volume’ modern mining methods — are often largely preserved.

These old projects were often excavated by hand, with miners following the really high-grade gold veins and disregarding everything else.

For example, at the entrance to Adit #5 at Lone Pine, sampling of the vein zone a few years ago averaged an exceptional 14.46g/t gold over 2.6m.

An adit is the entrance passageway to an underground mine.

The aim of Hawkstone’s maiden drilling is to test this historic non-JORC compliant +70,000oz resource estimate and bring it up to JORC standards; a must-have for ASX-listed explorers.

But Hawkstone’s highly experienced management, geological and technical teams on the ground in the US believe there’s much more to find here.

The quartz gold vein zone has been traced by adits and trenches for 480m, which has been traced ‘down dip’ via adits for up to 150m.

It remains ‘open’ to both the northeast and southwest as well as down dip, which means Hawkstone doesn’t know where the gold ends yet.

By the way, when companies talk about going ‘along strike’ or ‘down/up dip’ this is what they mean:

“We’re very excited to commence drilling at the Lone Pine gold project, as this represents a significant milestone in the company’s diversification into the gold sector, that continues to exhibit price strength,” Hawkstone managing director Paul Lloyd says.

“Through the maiden drill program, Hawkstone aims to demonstrate the veracity of the historic gold resource, in addition to testing the grade of the broader mineralised zone, as alluded to by Guewilik and demonstrated by previous sampling.

“The diamond drilling will provide Hawkstone with an excellent understanding of the Lone Pine’s geology and grade, guiding future resource definition drilling, with the aim of rapidly defining a potentially high-grade JORC complaint resource in a mining friendly state.”

NOW READ: ‘The geology is simple – just drill it’: Hawkstone’s Greg Smith on the +18g/t Lone Pine gold project

 

 

This story was developed in collaboration with Hawkstone Mining, 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.

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