VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – The most recent exploration campaign by junior gold explorer Red Pine Exploration on its flagship Wawa gold project, in Ontario, has found five stacked mineralised gold zones outside of the existing compliant inferred resource, blowing new life into a promising prospect in a high-grade historic mining camp.

Recent drilling has also intersected a shear zone containing a quartz vein (assays pending), in which visible gold was observed and demonstrates a connection between the former Minto mine (23 000 oz at 12.56 g/t gold), towards the vicinity of the former Parkhill mine (54 298 oz at 14.81 g/t gold), demonstrating that both mines were likely formed as part of the same gold system.

Since Red Pine Exploration got involved in the project in December 2014, the team has grown the existing compliant inferred resource by 9% to 1.09-million ounces grading 1.71 g/t, at a 0.5 g/t cutoff grade, senior project manager Conrad Dix tells Mining Weekly Online.

The company recently completed the acquisition of Augustine Ventures, which previously owned a 30% stake in the Wawa gold project, bringing Red Pine’s total interest in the flagship Wawa project to 60%. The balance is owned by Citabar.

Red Pine, which first started in the junior exploration business 81 years ago, has had early success at the Surluga deposit, implementing a 4 021 m drill campaign that increased the resource grade by 14.5%, while boosting total gold ounces at the same cutoff grade.

So far, the company’s exploration efforts have discovered nearly four ounces of gold for every metre drilled.

The 5 510 ha land package comprises eight past producing mines on the property, with total historic output of about 120 000 oz of gold, at an average head grade of 9.04 g/t.

The most recent highlight, hole SD-17-50, steps out from the existing pit-constrained resource, intersecting five stacked gold zones that include 2.02 g/t gold over 9.7 m in the Surluga Road shear zone; 0.51 g/t gold over 9.3 m and 0.49 g/t gold over 6.04 m in the Jubilee shear zone; 0.63 g/t gold over 14.88 m in the William Gold zone; 1.28 g/t gold over 8.86 m in the lower William Gold zone; and 0.86 g/t gold over 4.92 m in the upper Hornblende shear zone.

Hole SD-17-52 intersected two stacked gold zones that include 1.09 g/t gold over 10.89 m in the lower Hornblende shear zone; and 0.98 g/t gold over 19 m in the Jubilee shear zone.

Other recent exploration results include 5.44 g/t gold over 11 m outside the modelled higher-grade zone within the Surluga openpit, while hole SD-16-43 also returned 2 g/t gold over 8.96 m, pointing to mineralisation extending 525 m to the north.

EMERGING CORRIDOR
The Wawa Gold Corridor is roughly defined as a 2 000-m-long and 600-m-wide corridor comprising stacked shear zones that include the Jubilee shear zone, which hosts the Surluga deposit; the Surluga shear zone; the William Gold zone; the Hornblende shear zone; and the Algoma shear zone.

“Our exploration strategy is a mix between brownfield and greenfield exploration. When we got involved, we knew that we had to grow the resource with grassroots exploration, while also working on expanding the current resource. We are now in a position where we are starting to connect the dots on the emerging Wawa Gold Corridor,” Dix says.

Red Pine has just completed a 6 000 m drill programme and will immediately start a 10 000 m follow-up programme that will continue to focus on advancing the Surluga deposit and explore other targets within the Wawa Gold Corridor, with a second drill being mobilised after spring ice breakup.

Meanwhile, Dix explains that previous explorers on the property were only looking for high-grade gold-bearing quartz veins, prompting the company to reprocess 42 000 m of historic core, which resulted in significant new gold mineralisation being found in 46% of the 146 resampled historic holes. The current resource comprises a high-grade core surrounded by lower-grade zones that were previously unsampled.

The deposit remains open in all directions including new gold mineralisation discovered in the hanging-wall and footwall of the Surluga deposit. The company found gold grading up to 109 g/t over 0.86 m in the unsampled core. “The hanging wall is now being found to not be barren at all, as once thought,” Dix states.

The geology team is also employing new technologies that it believes are increasing its chances of discovering more resources.

‘BLUE SKY' POTENTIAL
Dix underscores that the second drill being mobilised will afford the company the opportunity to test for "blue sky" potential south of the current resource.

“Additional gold discoveries on the property are likely,” Dix states, pointing to a 143.1 g/t composite grab sample near the Darwin-Grace mine, and 57.31 g/t over 3.14 m intersected by hole DG-17-56, 3 km to the south of the current deposit.

“We are working towards an estimation of the exploration potential on the property. The drilling campaign is constantly evolving as we intercept more mineralisation,” he states.

To this end, Red Pine announced on Tuesday that it has contracted Golder Associates to review the exploration target potential at the Wawa gold project and update the June 2015 technical report. The exploration target will summarise the tonnage and grade ranges for the mineralised corridor that includes the Surluga deposit, at the Wawa project.

With several multimillion-ounce deposits nearby, including Richmont Mines and its Island Gold Mine, Argonaut Gold’s Magino deposit, and Wesdome Gold and its Eagle River mine, the Wawa project is also located close to key infrastructure and a qualified workforce, with the town of Wawa located 2 km to the west.

Dix says several gold majors have come knocking on the door, adding that estimating the exploration potential on the property is more important at the moment, than working to update the resource. "We will need tens of thousands of metres of drilling more to justify a resource update. While we have several confidentiality agreements with several majors, the drill results as they come in are enough for them to build their models with," he stated.