Newhawk drilling hits high grade zone on Sulphurets

“This is an extremely important discovery and could be the deciding factor to production,” said President Don McLeod.

Newhawk owns 60% of the project and is operator while Granduc Mines (TSE) holds the remaining interest. The partners are currently funding a 23,000-ft underground drill program at Sulphurets, which is now at the feasibility study stage.

The new R-8 zone was discovered at the 1200-level when a short crosscut was driven from the bottom of the decline.

Sampling along the zone returned 1.199 oz gold cut to (2.0 oz) and 56.64 oz silver per ton along a true width of 10.9 ft on the North Wall, and 0.574 oz gold and 11.13 oz silver across a true width of 17.9 ft on the South Wall.

Results from the first three diamond drill holes which penetrated the R-8 structure were equally impressive.

The holes returned (all true widths): 6.3 ft grading 0.65 oz gold and 22.52 oz silver; 13.6 ft of 1.586 oz gold and 15.88 oz silver and 9.4 ft of 0.323 oz gold and 7.85 oz silver.

Although encouraged by the grade and by what appears to be “significant” strike and dip lengths, McLeod said an even more positive factor is the apparent continuity of the zone.

“The continuity looks excellent and that’s very important when it comes to adding tonnage,” he said.

The R-8 structure has now been drilled through a vertical distance of 150 ft and remains open up and down dip, and along strike in both directions.

Assays are expected shortly for holes drilled on an adjacent section 100 ft to the north (35 ft north of the crosscut) which Newhawk said “visually returned excellent mineralization.”

The R-8 structure is described as a well defined series of parallel quartz veins which contain tetrahedrite, argentite, electrum, gold, sphalerite, ruby silver and chalcopyrite. One of the three recent holes also intersected 0.401 oz gold and 1.62 oz silver over an estimated true width of 30 ft adjacent to R-8, but this was interpreted to be the UTC zone. (Newhawk has intersected a number of significant intersections in the UTC zone since its discovery by surface drilling last year.)

McLeod said the emphasis now is to continue drilling to explore the R-8 and nearby UTC zones in order to define the dimensions and potential tonnage of the two important and possibly related structures.

Drilling is also continuing on the West zone which at last report contained 854,072 tons grading 0.354 oz gold and 22.94 oz silver per ton.

Watts, Griffis and McOuat were recently retained to prepare a final reserve estimate for the Sulphurets project that will be incorporated into a feasibility study by Cominco Engineering Services.

“Because we will obviously want to incorporate results from the current program, this could be delayed a month or so,” said McLeod.

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