Maple drills 17 metres of 1.91 g/t gold at Douay, shares up

A historic headframe at Maple Gold Mines' Douay gold property in northern Quebec. Credit: Maple Gold Mines.

Drilling within the Porphyry zone at Maple Gold's 355-sq.-km Douay project in Quebec has intersected mineralization within current conceptual pit shells outside of the existing resource model.

The company has released assay results for two holes; drill highlights include 17 metres of 1.91 g/t gold starting at 189 metres downhole from DO-20-283 as well as a number of gold zones within the top 90 metres of DO-20-280, such as 4 metres of 0.85 g/t gold, 4 metres of 1.14 g/t gold and 1.5 metres of 1.61 g/t gold.

Hole DO-20-283 tested a 140-metre gap in drilling nearby the northern limit of the current conceptual pit and ended in mineralization, returning 7 metres of 1.06 g/t gold at the end of the hole - drilling was stopped early due to the covid-19 shutdown in Quebec.

Additional assays are pending, this includes the bottom portion of DO-20-280 as well as all of hole DO-20-281, which tested the continuity of the mineralization down-dip.

DO-20-283 also hit lower-grade halo mineralization (including 22 metres of 0.35 g/t gold) close to surface.

"I'm encouraged to see these significant new intercepts in relative proximity to indicated resources that are already defined," Fred Speidel, the company's VP of exploration, said in a release.

"There are several more drilling gaps remaining to be tested and the western part of the Porphyry zone is an area we believe can contribute additional higher-than-deposit-average grade mineralization within the top 50 metres to 250 metres from surface."

Porphyry zone at Douay features higher grades than other deposits at the site

According to the company, the Porphyry zone at Douay features higher grades than other deposits at the site with relatively sparse historical drilling.

The most recent results suggest a number of gold zones within the near-surface portion of the western part of the Porphyry area, which would be above or at the base of the current conceptual pit shells.

Maple plans to start additional geophysical surveys over the site to zone in on anomalies defined over the winter - this will include follow-up on a target to the south of the Porphyry zone.

Last year, the company released an updated resource for Douay with total pit-constrained indicated resources of 8.6 million tonnes grading 1.52 g/t gold for a total of 422,000 oz. and a further 65.8 million inferred tonnes at 0.97 g/t gold totalling 2 million pit-constrained oz.

The underground component is at 5.4 million inferred tonnes grading 1.75 g/t gold for a total of 307,000 oz. The resources are contained within the Porphyry, Douay West, Nika and 531 zones, among others.

Douay covers 55 km of strike along the Casa Berardi deformation zone, within the Abitibi greenstone belt.

Midday Wednesday, Maple's stock was up 6.25% on the TSXV. The company has a C$20.3 million market capitalization.

(This article first appeared in the Canadian MiningJournal)