Brigus Gold, the rapidly emerging mid-tier gold producer with primary sites in Canada at their wholly-owned Black Fox Mine (which has an on-site milling facility), announced today that exploratory drilling on the southern arm of Black Fox continues to return high-grade gold assays.
Bringing in results across a good range of gold mineralization values ranging upwards of 5 g/t (across six holes, citing uncut average gold grades over the length of the core widths), with notable entries like 25.72 g/t Au over 33.3 feet (including a whopping 281.75 g/t over 2.8 feet), or 5.42 g/t Au over 103 feet (including 102 g/t Au over 3.3 feet), Brigus’ management must be extremely pleased to be finding yet more evidence that the so-called Contact Zone in the south of the Black Fox Complex is rich in high-grade gold targets.
Indeed, even VP of Exploration for BRD, Howard Bird, in his review of this latest set of data, was somewhat taken aback at just how unexpectedly far over the anticipated widths core values were for this high-grade gold mineralization. While BRD knew there was high-grade gold here from previous drilling, it was not clear just how thick the intercepts could be and these results offer a more complete portrait of the underlying geology/structural makeup of the site that has bolstered confidence at the company considerably.
Bird went on to explain that certain dilation jogs in the immediate geology, in conjunction with cross-cutting fault structures are sufficient to explain the “impressive plunging gold shoots” observed in this latest bout of highly focused/targeted drilling.
The Contact Zone mineralization is characterized by a steeply dipping fault contact between two north-south trending groups (metasediments and mafic volcanic rocks), as well as other proximal hanging wall/footwall zones. With an outline for the area encompassing a strike of some 1,476 feet in length (easterly trending dip of 78 degrees), the company has a very good logistical window here, with the strike open at depth and along strike to the north.
The Black Fox Complex is really the jewel of BRD’s crown and continues to earn that reputation with results like those in today’s report. Black Fox is a huge project of some seven square miles, encompassing the primary mine and mill site, as well as ancillary/adjoining properties in the nearby Township of Black River-Matheson, Ontario. Located smack in the middle of the prolific Timmins Mining District, Black Fox has only seen only approximately 25% of the total footprint systematically explored thus far, leading many investors (as well as the staff at BRD) to posit that there is significant upside potential remaining on the property (something made all the more palpable by today’s findings).
A preliminary economic assessment is currently underway on the Contact Zone (as well as the proximal 147 Zone) and the initial resource estimate compiled in December of last year alone added as much as 50% to the gold resource. Needless to say expectations are running high over at BRD and exploration drilling via the three on-site drilling rigs, with a projected 2012 release date for an updated estimate on Contact and 147, is progressing according to schedule.
The Brigus exploration team supervised Norex Drilling for the majority of surface drilling in today’s report, with sample analysis being handled by respected local laboratory, Polymet Labs over in Cobalt, Ontario (as well as SGS Laboratories in Sudbury, both of whom are ISO 9001:2000 certified in North America for standard fire assay). Senior Exploration Project Manager John A. Dixon, P. Geo., handled the review of technical data, acting as the Qualified Person for BRD and the company has gone to great lengths as usual to implement their standard quality control methods, including insertion of blanks and duplicates.
Adding to this strong production pipeline in Canada, BRD also has the Goldfields property near Uranium City, Saskatchewan, under their belt (economically recoverable gold deposit and reserves of some 1M ounces), as well as satellite projects in Chihuahua and Chiapas, Mexico.
For more information on today’s report that covered new drilling at Black Fox, including analysis of anything over 1 g/t, and a map of the drilling, please visit the Brigus Gold Corp. website at: www.brigusgold.com
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