The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
The mining newspaper for Alaska and Canada's North
Mining Explorers 2022 - January 19, 2023
Nighthawk Gold President and CEO Keyvan Salehi inspecting core at the Indin Lake gold project in Northwest Territories.
Click image to see larger map.
Toward its primary goal of expanding near-surface high-grade gold at Indin Lake, Nighthawk Gold Corp. completed 40,085 meters of drilling within the Colomac Centre and higher-grade satellite gold targets across its district-scale gold property in Northwest Territories.
The 359-square-mile (930 square kilometers) Indin Lake property covers the northern end of the West Bay-Indin Lake fault zone, a regional structure that extends 125 miles (200 kilometers) south to the Giant and Con mines near Yellowknife, NWT. Colomac, a historical mine that produced 527,908 ounces of gold, lies at the heart of the Indin Lake property.
According to a calculation completed early in 2021, Indin Lake hosts 46.4 million metric tons of open pit mineable indicated resource averaging 1.38 grams per metric ton (2.06 million oz) gold; and 7.8 million metric tons of open pit mineable inferred resource averaging 1.68 g/t (601,400 oz) gold.
Nighthawk's 2022 program began with more than 25,000 meters of drilling focused on expanding the resource within the Colomac Centre deposits – Colomac Main, Goldcrest, Grizzly Bear, 24 and 27.
Highlights include:
• 91.75 meters averaging 1.38 g/t gold in hole C22-04 (Colomac Main).
• 40.75 meters averaging 2.52 g/t gold in hole TFS22-08 (24/27).
• 54.35 meters averaging 2.91 g/t gold in hole TFS22-10 (24/7).
• 9.5 meters averaging 7.57 g/t gold in hole C22-17 (Colomac Main).
• 70.57 meters averaging 1.51 g/t gold in hole C22-26 (Colomac Main).
• One meter averaging 271.4 g/t gold in hole C22-27 (Colomac Main).
• 20.25 meters averaging 3.02 g/t gold in hole GB22-31 (Grizzly Bear).
• 92 meters averaging 2.09 g/t gold in hole C22-40 (Colomac Main).
• 34.5 meters averaging 2.72 g/t gold in hole C22-45 (Colomac Main).
"We see a lot more upside along the main deposit at Colomac, along strike and at depth," said Nighthawk Gold President and CEO Keyvan Salehi.
The balance of the 2022 drilling tested the Kim and Cass deposits, which lie about 15 kilometers (nine miles) southwest of Colomac Main.
Kim hosts 2.2 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 1.92 g/t (135,800 oz) gold, and Cass hosts 2.3 million metric tons of inferred resource averaging 2.44 g/t (180,500 oz) gold.
Highlights from 2022 drilling at Kim and Cass include:
• 22.1 meters averaging 1.62 g/t gold in hole KM22-03 (Kim).
• 17.7 meters averaging 7.3 g/t gold in hole KM22-04 (Kim).
• 29.8 meters averaging 2.44 g/t gold in hole KM22-06 (Kim).
• 0.5 meters averaging 125.5 g/t gold in hole CM22-07 (Cass).
• Two meters averaging 232.18 g/t gold in hole CM22-22 (Cass).
• 33.5 meters averaging 2.67 g/t gold in hole CM22-31 (Cass).
Connected to Colomac Centre by an access road, Kim and Cass have significant potential as satellite deposits that could expand and increase the grade of gold resources being considered for early mining at Indin Lake.
"We believe the Kim and Cass Deposits have the potential to significantly expand the high-grade mineralization of our project," said Salehi.
The 2022 drilling is expected to add high-grade, near-surface gold into updated resource estimates as Nighthawk begins to consider a preliminary economic assessment for establishing a hub-and-spoke style of mining operation that can take advantage of the large resource being built at Colomac and the higher-grade satellite gold deposits across the district-scale project in Northwest Territories.
"With the 40 kilometer drill database completed and disclosed for 2022, we have all the information needed to update the 2022 MRE, which we plan to deliver in early 2023," Salehi added.
Over his more than 16 years of covering mining and mineral exploration, Shane has become renowned for his ability to report on the sector in a way that is technically sound enough to inform industry insiders while being easy to understand by a wider audience.
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