Aston Bay is ready to expand Seal Zinc

Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. Aug. 1 said new drill targets at its Seal Zinc deposit on the Aston Bay property on Somerset Island, Nunavut, will be targeted during a drill program to begin later this month.

Last year, Aston Bay commissioned a high resolution airborne gravity gradiometry survey, a geophysical technique that measures minute differences in the earth's density to yield information on underground geologic structures, to help identify potential areas of concealed mineralization across the more than 1-million-acre Aston Bay property.

All three areas surveyed – Storm Copper, Seal and Typhoon Zinc – returned strong gravity responses that are being utilized to target this year's drill program.

The company began testing targets turned up at the Storm Copper prospect with a 6,000-meter drill program that began in June.

Highlights from drilling completed at Storm from 1997 through 2001 include: 110 meters of 2.45 percent copper from surface; 56 meters of 3.07 percent copper from a depth of 12.2 meters; and 49 meters of 1.79 percent copper from surface.

This year's drilling at Storm is testing gravity anomalies coincident with known zones of stratabound and structurally-hosted copper mineralization and new targets beyond the limits of previous drilling.

Situated about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) northwest of Storm, the high-grade Seal zinc deposit lies at the base of a small peninsula about 200 meters from tidewater.

In December, Aston Bay Holdings published an updated resource estimate for Seal based on drilling carried out by Cominco in 1995-96 and Noranda in 2001.

At a 4 percent cut-off grade, Seal hosts 1 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 10.24 percent (227 million pounds) zinc and 46.5 grams per metric ton (1.5 million ounces) silver.

The 2017 geophysical survey turned up several gravity anomalies occuring along trend to the north and south of the Seal deposit.

Two of these anomalies in the Seal North area have coincident historical zinc-in-soil anomalies and are targets for ground follow-up and potential drilling.

A third target south of seal is defined by a localized gravity anomaly coincident with the contact between the Allen Bay (which hosts the Seal Zinc deposit) and overlying Cape Storm (which hosts the Storm Copper prospect) formations. This target is also supported by a historical zinc-in-soil anomaly, providing an intriguing target for follow-up drilling. The historical samples at Seal South were not analyzed for copper, Aston Bay has now resampled these areas to provide a full analytical suite.

Drills targeting Storm will be moved to Seal to finish the 6,000-meter drill program on the Aston Bay property.

–SHANE LASLEY