Nighthawk strikes gold beyond Colomac

Nighthawk Gold Corp. June 26 reported high-grade gold intercepts from recent drilling at North Inca, one of four gold deposits within the Leta Arm gold project on the Indin Lake property in Northwest Territories.

"Leta Arm is one of our principal projects, and a prime example of the type of emergent opportunity that exists in this juvenile gold camp. Given the camp's underexplored nature, we believe that many other prospects of similar magnitude remain to be discovered," said Nighthawk Gold President and CEO Michael Byron.

North Inca consists of two mineralized quartz-rich vein systems – East Zone and West Zone – that lie 150 meters apart. Of the 11 holes reported by Nighthawk, nine tested East Zone and two were drilled into West Zone. All holes cut gold mineralization and visible gold was observed in eight of them

Highlights from this drilling include 25.5 meters (13 meters true-width) of 2.68 grams per metric ton gold in hole NI18-03B; 9.25 meters (five meters true-width) of 4.49 g/t gold in NI18- 02B; 15.1 meters (9.7 meters true-width) of 2.36 g/t gold in NI18-03; and 11.25 meters (6.5 meters true-width) of 3.26 g/t gold in NI18-05.

These holes drilled at North Inca were laid out to follow up on high-grade gold encountered by Nighthawk there in 2011. So far, none of the holes has tested this near-surface deposit below 100 meters and it remains open to depth.

Located about 16 kilometers (10 miles) southwest of Colomac, North Inca and the other three deposits at Leta Arm – Diversified, Number 3 and Lexindin – could provide gold-rich satellite ore to a mine developed at Nighthawk's primary gold project on the Indin Lake property.

Exploration shafts and limited underground development were completed on the North Inca and Diversified gold deposits in the 1940s and 1950s exploring multi-stage quartz veins characterized by high-grade gold mineralization. The historical Diversified Mine is 1,300 meters north of the historical North Inca Mine, the Number 3 deposit lying between them and the Lexindin deposit is 1,200 meters north of Diversified.

All deposits lie along a linear array and remain open laterally and vertically, suggesting that they may be part of a single extensive yet underexplored system.

"We are awaiting the findings of our recently completed Induced Polarization survey, as results of that work are expected to assist with future drill targeting throughout the Leta Arm corridor and may also provide valuable insight into any possible relationship between the four deposits," said Byron.

Nighthawk also completed drilling this year at Diversified, Number 3, and Lexindin. Assay results from this drilling are expected soon.

The company's drilling at Indin Lake is now focused on expanding the deposits at Colomac, which currently hosts 50.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.62 g/t (2.61 million ounces) of gold, and Damoti Lake, a small but high-grade, near surface gold deposit about 28 kilometers (17 miles) south of Colomac.

"Two of the three drills are now working the Colomac area deposits and will remain there for the duration of the 2018 program, while the third rig will be active on several of our regional deposits and priority targets including the high-grade Damoti Lake gold deposit."

A resource calculated for Anaconda Gold Corp. in 2005 outlined 40,600 metric tons of measured and indicated resource at Damoti Lake averaging 26.17 g/t gold; plus 17,800 metric tons of inferred resource averaging 16.38 g/t gold.

–SHANE LASLEY