IDM expands Red Mountain gold discoveries

IDM Mining Ltd. Nov. 27 reported that high-grade gold and silver results from trenching and sampling have expanded two new zones – Lost Valley and Cambria – on the company's Red Mountain gold project in the Golden Triangle of northwestern British Columbia. Both zones are in areas of the property with better exposure due to recent glacial retreat.

Lost Valley is a discovery area about 4,000 meters south of the resource area at Red Mountain, where IDM Mining is in the final stage of gaining permits to develop an underground gold-silver mine.

Sampling at Lost Valley in 2016 discovered Money Rock, a gold-silver zone the company had traced for about 100 meters along the surface.

Randall Vein, another high-grade gold-silver zone, is located about 75 meters south of Money Rock.

Results from sampling carried out this year shows these two zones, originally interpreted to be separate structures, are part of a continuous mineralized structure that has been traced for more than 310 meters.

At Money Rock, channel and panel samples were collected from an 85-meter-long section of strike, as well as a five-meter-long section separated by a 10-meter-long section of glacial moraine. The 117 samples collected here during the 2018 program averaged 11.6 grams per metric ton gold and 42.4 g/t silver.

The exposed structure at Money Rock ranges from 0.5 to over three meters in thickness. This year's sampling of this structure were primarily panel samples that included local hanging wall and footwall samples, as well as selected grab samples.

The highest grade gold sample collected contained 72.82 g/t gold. High-grade silver samples include: 2,617, 2,059 and 846 g/t silver. To calculate the average, silver grades were capped at 100 g/t.

During 2016, three drill holes from a single drill pad were completed at Money Rock.

Hole LV16-01 cut one meter 3 g/t gold and 23.8 g/t silver and LV16-02 intersected 1.2 meters averaging 4.63 g/t gold and 90.90 g/t silver. All three holes intersected a post-mineralization dyke where the zone was projected to occur from surface.

IDM said future drilling will target areas to the west and east of this dyke.

Trenching at the Randell vein, which is separated from Money Rock by a shallow pond, exposed a 20-meter-long sub-crop of quartz-pyrite colluvium averaging 6.46 g/t gold and 35 g/t silver (capped at 100 g/t silver). A hand trench dug five meters to the northeast in 2016 within sub-cropping of quartz and sulfide averaged 22.4 g/t gold and 81.7 g/t silver over a series of continuous panel samples totaling 9.25 meters in length.

Additional assays are pending from an estimated nine-meter true thickness section of the structure.

The Money Rock-Randall Vein mineralized structure has been traced for over 310 meters of strike, with thickness ranging from 0.50 to nine meters.

IDM said the mineralization identified at Lost Valley is similar in structure and geochemistry to the Pogo Deposit, an underground gold mine in Alaska.

In addition to the exploration at Lost Valley, IDM Mining carried out reconnaissance mapping and sampling across a 1,000- by 500-meter area of prospective rocks in the Cambria zone that have been exposed over the past two years by the rapidly retreating Cambria icefield. This newly exposed area is immediately northeast of Marc Zone, which is within the Red Mountain mine plan, and north of an initial resource at the Cambria zone.

Results for the 47 grab and channel samples assayed so far averaged two g/t gold. The highest grade samples from this area contained 18.74, 14.45, 13.5 and 13.28 g/t gold.

Mineralization at Cambria zone is associated with pyrite mineralization, similar to the Red Mountain resources.

IDM plans to test this area with a reconnaissance hole as part of the underground drill program currently underway.

On Nov. 21, the company said it has added a third rig and expanded the underground drill program at Red Mountain to 13,000 meters.

"With increased confidence in the continuity of the extensions of the mineralized horizon at Red Mountain, we are looking forward to exploring new, undrilled targets in addition to expanding known zones," said IDM Mining President and CEO Rob McLeod.

Thanks to the efficiency of the crews and contractors, the drill program at Red Mountain is significantly under budget and ahead of schedule. The expanded drill program is being staged from a winterized camp and shop facility located adjacent to the underground workings.

–SHANE LASLEY