Matador Mining Ltd (ASX:MZZ, OTCQX:MZZMF) has intersected 19 metres at 4.2 g/t gold during a diamond drilling campaign at the Cape Ray Gold Project in Newfoundland, Canada.
The 19-metre hit, which occurred from 9 metres, also included 1 metre at 30.6 g/t and 1 metre at 24.1 g/t and marked its best-ever result from the Window Glass Hill Granite (WGHG) region and shares are up 7.35% to A$0.365.
More than just a strong gold hit, the intersect highlights the potential for further high-grade gold domains across the granite body.
Assays from 13 other drill holes across the WGHG remain pending, while diamond rigs continue to turn the soil at Cape Ray’s Big Pond and Benton greenfields targets.
Some of the key targets at the Cape Ray Gold Project in Newfoundland, Canada.
Defining new target type in WGHG
Speaking to the key result, Matador Mining executive chairman Ian Murray said: “19 metres at 4.2 g/t gold is the best gold intercept drilled in the WGHG, and better than any previously reported ‘significant intercepts’ within the WGH mineral resource.
“What makes this intercept even more exciting is the proximity of the high-grade mineralisation to surface, and that it represents the successful definition of a new target type within the WGHG.
“The recent power auger geochemistry results, combined with structural interpretation of our new detailed magnetics, encouraged the exploration team to test a conceptual target on the granite margin south of the WGH mineral resource.
“This structural position is similar to that of Marathon Gold’s Valentine Lake deposits, and the granite-hosted portions of Red 5’s King of the Hills Mine (Tarmoola) in Western Australia.”
Diamond drilling extends footprint
Matador embarked on its 2021 drilling campaign in May this year, aiming to drill 20,000 metres across Cape Ray’s known deposits and greenfields targets.
Drilling across Window Glass Hill, an important gold deposit to the southwest with an inferred resource, unearthed strong intersections into the granite margin with other results including:
- 6 metres at 1.0 g/t from 34 metres, including 1-metre at 4.4 g/t;
- 4 metres at 1.9 g/t from 114 metres, including 1-metre at 6.3 g/t;
- 7 metres at 1.1 g/t from 47 metres, including 1-metre at 5.6 g/t;
- 4 metres at 1.1 g/t Au from 103 metres, including 1-metre at 2.2 g/t;
- 2 metres at 2.4 g/t Au from 163 metres, including 1-metre at 4.1 g/t; and
- 1-metre at 16.4 g/t gold from 109.4 metres.
All of these intersections came from adjacent holes that were drilled into a single, previously untested granite margin target within the WGHG.
Importantly, mineralisation remains open to the north and northeast along the granite contact.
The best-ever gold hit at WGHG — 19 metres at 4.2 g/t — lies outside the mineral resource envelope, roughly 500 metres southwest of the high-grade central shoot.
This demonstrates there’s potential for multiple high-grade domains within the much larger WGHG hosted stockwork and ladder-vein mineral system.
Exploring WGHG’s potential
Cape Ray’s WGHG extends for roughly 3 kilometres and runs 800 metres wide, but less than half of the granite body has been diamond drill tested.
However, power auger geochemistry and surface rock chip assays taken across the undrilled portions of the granite indicate that gold mineralisation and associated pathfinder anomalies are present across the entire WGHG, providing significant upside potential for this gold mineral system.
Matador doubled down on southern contact margin of the WGHG after interpreting the magnetics and power auger drilling results.
Further drill-centric exploration will continue to assess the potential for this zone to connect with the WGH mineral resource to the north and extend along the granite contact to the northeast, which remains untested over a 500-metre strike length along the contact.
Murray continued: “With 11 new holes now completed into this previously untested granite margin target (all intersecting significant gold results), I am very excited by the untested potential of the remaining 6-kilometre strike length of the WGHG contact.
“This, combined with our ongoing targeting success delivering high-grade mineralisation near-surface, augers well for the continued growth of the WGHG mineralisation footprint.
“With assay results now flowing through, and drilling using both power auger and diamond rigs, we are anticipating regular news flow for the remainder of the year and into 2022”.