JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – Dual-listed Lake Shore Gold has discovered a new gold zone, 144 Gap SW, at its 144 exploration area, immediately south-west of the Timmins West mine’s Thunder Creek deposit, in Northern Ontario.

“The location of the 144 Gap SW zone is very attractive as it will be easily accessible by further extending the exploration drift currently being developed to the 144 Gap zone from Thunder Creek,” Lake Shore Gold President and CEO Tony Makuch noted on Thursday. 

The Canada-based gold producer said the 144 Gap SW discovery, 200 m south-west of 144 Gap zone and 150 m north-east of 144 North, involved the drilling of an additional 25 drill holes and two wedge holes covering 28 011 m of drilling at the 144 exploration area.

The 144 Gap SW zone discovery resulted from eight holes that were drilled to test targets to the south-west of the 144 Gap.

This was the second discovery at 144 in less than one year. Drilling at 144, to date, had been largely focused on the 144 Gap area, where a new discovery was announced in October 2014.

The 144 exploration area currently covered about 4 km of the same volcanic/ultramafic, intrusive/sedimentary contact, the TC-144 trend, which hosts both the Thunder Creek and Timmins deposits.

“The success we are having drilling along the TC-144 trend is very exciting as it continues to identify areas for potential future resource growth within Timmins West Complex. It also continues to support our belief that the TC-144 trend is host to multiple gold deposits that, together, can establish Timmins West as a major gold mining centre,” advised Makuch.

With a new programme of geophysics now in the final stages of preparation, substantial surface drilling in progress, the exploration drift from Thunder Creek advancing on schedule and underground drilling from the exploration drift now under way, Lake Shore continued to be “very encouraged” about the future of 144 and of its Timmins West Complex.

Recent interpretations continued to suggest that the mineralisation at 144 Gap was contained within a broad zone of hydrothermal alteration and deformation measuring up to 100 m wide and closely associated with syenite intrusions, quartz veining, pyrite, scheelite and/or galena and multiple occurrences of visible gold.

Mineralisation appeared to be contained in a series of thick higher-grade chutes within an easterly plunging system, with some of the best mineralisation identified, to date, contained in a thick high-grade core. The core was estimated to measure 300 m vertically, 50 m to 125 m wide and 75 m to 125 m in strike length near the discovery hole Hwy-14-48.

Hwy-15-109, 110, 115, 117, 118, 119, 121, 122 and 124 were drilled as wide-spaced exploratory holes above the 144 Gap zone towards surface and generally returned low values, but confirmed the current geologic model indicating that the top of mineralisation was about 550 m below surface.

In addition to recent drilling, Lake Shore was in the final preparation stages for a large programme of surface geophysics, covering areas south-west of the 144 Gap and over the 144 North and South targets. The programme would include line cutting and an airborne drone magnetic survey, as well as a three-dimensional inverse polarisation survey over a 3.5 km by 4 km area to assist in defining new drill targets. Work on the programme was planned to start early in the third quarter.

The company planned to continue surface drilling with three to four drill rigs during the new geophysical programme with a focus on exploration to the south-west of the 144 Gap zone.