RENO, Nev., June 27, 2019 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nevada Exploration Inc. (“NGE” or the “Company”) (TSX-V: NGE; OTCQB: NVDEF) is pleased to provide its stakeholders with an update on its June 2019 exploration activities. Since beginning its 2019 field program at South Grass Valley (the “Project”), the Company has completed drill hole SGVC009 to a depth of 621 metres, and is now drilling hole SGVC010, which is located 500 metres northwest of SGVC009. Preliminary logging has confirmed that the significant Carlin-type geologic features seen in NGE’s earlier drill holes extend northwards beyond the limits of the Phase 1 drilling area, and has established that the bottom of SGVC009 contains the most intense multi-phase silicification and secondary pyrite seen to date at the Project.
Discussing the ongoing drilling, Wade Hodges, NGE’s CEO: “We’re off to a great start. Our Phase 1 drilling established we have a large Carlin-type hydrothermal system at the Project, along with a characteristic gold and pathfinder budget. The next step in systematically advancing and derisking the Project is to establish places where geologic conditions may have provided suitable catalysts, or controls, to focus the deposition of gold to form higher grades. Not only did SGVC009 bottom in the best-looking rocks we’ve seen so far in terms of the type and degree of alteration they contain, importantly, we’re also now seeing abrupt transitions in alteration minerals and textures coincident with abundant secondary pyrite veining, which are indicative of the sorts of rapid changes in solution chemistry that are often associated with zones of efficient gold deposition. With such positive encouragement from SGVC009, we’ve stepped to the north again with SGVC010, and this time will be working hard to get the drill hole deeper to collect more information from these highly prospective units.”
A photo accompanying this announcement is available at https://www.globenewswire.com/NewsRoom/AttachmentNg/50975fb6-8210-4782-90cb-7f27dc657415
As described in more detail in the Company’s news release dated May 16, 2019, based on the results of Phase 1 drilling, NGE has built a geologic model that domains the Project into smaller target areas, and suggests significant potential to identify additional targets. Driven by this model, NGE’s plan for its current phase of exploration is to use a combination of diamond core drill holes, reverse circulation drill holes, and soil sampling to add geologic, geochemistry, and stratigraphic information, both within and beyond the limits of its recently-completed Phase 1 drilling program, with the objectives of: (1) establishing the extent and size of the mineralized Carlin-type hydrothermal system at the Project; and (2) prioritizing targets for infill drilling.
Drill hole SGVC009 is located 600 metres north of the northernmost Phase 1 drill holes, beneath coincident gold-in-groundwater and mercury-in-soil anomalies along the NNW projected extension of the Carlin-type system discovered during the Phase 1 program. SGVC009 entered lower-plate bedrock at 412 metres, consisting of interbedded finely laminated mudstone and limestone units of the Roberts Mountains Formation, beneath a sequence of alluvium on top of tertiary-aged ash-flow tuff, mudflow breccia, and other ash-fall sediments containing highly silicified boulders likely derived from nearby source areas. Beginning at a depth of 487 metres, these lower-plate units exhibited increasingly argillized, bleached, and decalcified thinly laminated silty limestone indicative of vertical chemical zonation, which at 570 metres abruptly transitioned to abundant black sooty pyrite, brassy late-stage pyrite blebs, and stringers contained in a vuggy, shingle breccia texture showing increasing silicification with depth, supporting pronounced vertical zonation. Importantly, the pyritic silicification is accompanied by volume loss, which is commonly associated with gold mineralization in Carlin-type gold deposits. Silicification and secondary pyrite continued to increase in intensity with depth; however, due to challenging drilling conditions, on day 32 of drilling SGVC009, NGE was forced to abandon the hole at 621 metres. Based on early logging, the sooty pyritic silicification seen at the bottom of SGVC009 is similar to that seen in the bottoms of holes SGVC002, SGVC004, SGVC006, and SGVC007, which together now cover an area measuring more than three kilometers in strike. All SGVC009 core samples have now been submitted for assay.
Following up on the notable increase in silicification and secondary pyrite seen towards the bottom of SGVC009, at the northern limit of the holes drilled to date, NGE moved another 500 metres to the northwest for drill hole SGVC010. To avoid the drilling challenges encountered in SGVC009 and maximize the odds of completing SGVC010 deeper into the prospective stratigraphy, NGE has cased SGVC010 down to 323 metres, into what is believed to be the start of the lower-plate units, and is now continuing to core drill the hole.
In addition to the core drilling program, NGE’s follow-up soil-mercury sampling program is well underway, adding additional sample coverage at both the northern and southern ends of the Project. NGE has not yet begun its anticipated Scorpion drilling program as its field personnel are focused on supporting the core drilling program.
South Grass Valley Project
NGE’s South Grass Valley Project is a covered (blind) gold exploration project located approximately 50 kilometres south-southwest of the Cortez complex operated by Nevada Gold Mines (Barrick Gold Corp. and Newmont Mining Corp. joint venture), within the specific region of north-central Nevada known to host world-class CTGDs. NGE originally identified and staked the Project based on elevated concentrations of gold and CTGD pathfinder elements in groundwater that the Company discovered during a generative basin-scale hydrogeochemistry-supported exploration program. Since acquiring the Project, NGE has completed: an in-fill borehole groundwater sampling program, detailed air magnetic and gravity geophysics surveys, a soil geochemistry sampling program, and most recently, a Phase 1 core drilling program.
About Nevada Exploration Inc.
NGE is an exploration company advancing a portfolio of new district-scale gold exploration projects along Nevada’s Battle Mountain-Eureka (Cortez) Trend. NGE is led by an experienced management team that has been involved in several major discoveries in Nevada, including the discovery of Lone Tree and Rabbit Creek (part of the Twin Creeks Mine). NGE’s team has spent the last decade integrating the use of hydrogeochemistry with conventional exploration tools to develop a Nevada-specific regional-scale geochemistry exploration program.
With new proprietary technology, NGE has completed the world’s largest groundwater sampling program for gold exploration, collecting approximately 6,000 samples to evaluate Nevada’s covered basins for new gold exploration targets. To advance follow-up targets, NGE has overcome the high drilling costs that have previously prohibited the wide-spread use of drilling as a prospecting tool by developing its Scorpion drill rig, a small-footprint, truck-mounted, small-diameter RC drill rig specifically tailored to the drilling conditions in Nevada’s basins (analogous to RAB drilling in other parts of the world).
By integrating hydrogeochemistry and early-stage low-cost drilling with conventional exploration methods, NGE is overcoming the challenges and radically reducing the costs of exploring in Nevada’s covered basins, and is taking significant steps to open this important new search space up for district-scale exploration.
For further information, please contact:
Nevada Exploration Inc.
Email: info@nevadaexploration.com
Telephone: +1 (604) 601 2006
Website: www.nevadaexploration.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Wade A. Hodges, CEO & Director, Nevada Exploration Inc., is the Qualified Person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101, and has prepared the technical and scientific information contained in this News Release.
Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information:
This news release contains “forward-looking information” and “forward-looking statements” (collectively, “forward-looking information”) within the meaning of applicable securities laws, including, without limitation, expectations, beliefs, plans, and objectives regarding projects, potential transactions, and ventures discussed in this release.
In connection with the forward-looking information contained in this news release, the Company has made numerous assumptions, regarding, among other things, the assumption the Company will continue as a going concern and will continue to be able to access the capital required to advance its projects and continue operations. While the Company considers these assumptions to be reasonable, these assumptions are inherently subject to significant uncertainties and contingencies.
In addition, there are known and unknown risk factors which could cause the Company’s actual results, performance or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by the forward-looking information contained herein. Among the important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated by such forward-looking statements are the risks inherent in mineral exploration, the need to obtain additional financing, environmental permits, the availability of needed personnel and equipment for exploration and development, fluctuations in the price of minerals, and general economic conditions.
A more complete discussion of the risks and uncertainties facing the Company is disclosed in the Company’s continuous disclosure filings with Canadian securities regulatory authorities at www.sedar.com. All forward-looking information herein is qualified in its entirety by this cautionary statement, and the Company disclaims any obligation to revise or update any such forward-looking information or to publicly announce the result of any revisions to any of the forward-looking information contained herein to reflect future results, events or developments, except as required by law.