Emerging gold miner Sabina Gold and Silver has started a five-week exploration field mapping and sampling programme at the George project on the Back River gold project, in Nunavut.

The George project is the company’s second-most advanced of five designated project areas in the Back River gold district.

Located about 60 km north of Sabina’s Goose mine, George is host to 20 km of prospective iron formation with current resources of 7.1-million tonnes at 5.34 g/t gold for 1.2-million ounces in the indicated category and an additional 5.4-million tonnes at 6.12 g/t gold for 1.1-million ounces in the inferred category.

The George project hosts a standalone camp currently being readied for this year’s programme with a capacity of up to 60 people.

“George is the Back River gold district’s second most advanced project. As we have been busy moving Goose forward, we have not operated at George for almost a decade. Since that time, significant progress and success has been made at Goose to unravel the geological signature of these Back River iron formations. We are eager to apply some of these successful strategies to the prospective geology and existing deposits at George,” stated Sabina president and CEO Bruce McLeod.

“With an expanded scale of over 20 km of iron formation identified to date at George versus the 8 km at Goose, there is significant opportunity for new discovery. With a strong gold endowment, an established resource estimate of over two-million ounces of gold and a slate of prospects and drill targets, George makes Sabina unique with its own growth portfolio,” said McLeod.

Exploration at George will be carried out by Sabina geologists and consulting geologists with expertise in structural analysis and Archean gold systems. Programmes will consist of re-logging of select historic drill core sections and targeted field evaluations to build a revised structural map that will provide critical controls on gold mineralisation.

Fieldwork objectives are to better define stratigraphy, deposit and property scale mineral controls, and mineral paragenesis with the ultimate goal of building an enhanced property-wide geologic model for George.

Targeted mapping and sampling objectives will be completed at prioritized zones with anomalous gold values, as highlighted by historic data evaluation, and along projected strike of major gold trends. Results from the summer field programme will be used to inform targeting and planning for future exploration drilling.