Navaho completes first Nevada drill hole

THE DRILL SERGEANT: Navaho Gold has completed drilling its first diamond drill hole at the company’s Utah Clipper project in Nevada, USA.

Navaho said the drilling encountered a strongly fractured, altered pyrite-rich dyke within a thrust zone returning results of:

–    5.9 metres at 0.12 grams per tonne gold from 1,077.5 metres (using a 0.1g/t cut off).

Navaho considered this result to be particularly significant in that the Carlin-style mineralisation associated with Nevada gold exploration is often associated with dykes of this type.

 

Utah Clipper project location on Cortez Trend, Nevada. Source: Company announcement

Another zone of 4.1m at 0.10g/t gold from 1,141.5m was intersected in what the company described to be strongly fractured and silicified Lower Plate rocks.

Both gold zones recorded anomalous pathfinder elements indicative of Carlin style mineralisation.

In February Navaho announced silver mineralisation had been intersected in the upper part of the hole.

It said this has now been found to extend down the entire length of the hole.

Using a 10g/t silver cut off, a further three intervals were intersected of:

–    7.6m at 14.5g/t silver from 697.4m;

–    2.7m at 15.9g/t silver from 960.1m; and

–    2.4m at 65.1g/t silver from 1,115.7m.

Navaho believes further exploration work, including a second drillhole is warranted on the property given the close proximity to world-class gold operations, a defined target with surface geochemistry potentially indicative of Carlin style mineralisation at depth and encouragement from the first hole.

Navaho Gold managing director Mark Dugmore said that although the hole was technically a difficult one to drill, it had provided the company with a good idea of the depth to the prospective Lower Plate rocks.

“This, along with the elevated levels of geochemistry (particularly silver, gold and associated pathfinder elements) gives us encouragement to review our geological interpretation of the area and, given the close proximity to Barrack’s Pipeline-Cortez operations, target a further drill hole to test one of the remaining targets,” Dugmore said in the company’s announcement to the Australian Securities Exchange.

“Consideration will be given to the use of a large capacity open-hole drilling rig for any future drilling to reduce costs and the drilling time.”