ASX-listed gold explorer, Ardiden, has identified a swathe of new targets across the West Pickle and Pickle Lake prospects at its gold play in Ontario, Canada. The new targets were identified using a combination of airborne magnetic, electromagnetic or “EM” geophysical surveys and historical data.
The West Pickle prospect is located along strike of the Central Patricia and Pickle Crow gold mines that were discovered around 1929.
Central Patricia churned out just over 620,000 ounces of gold between 1935 and 1951.
From 1935 to 1966, Pickle Crow produced nearly 1.5 million ounces of gold. Curiously, the last three gold bars from Pickle Crow were swiped by thieves and never reached the Royal Canadian Mint – a crime that remains unsolved to this day.
The South Limb project is located on what appears to be the continuation of the geophysical anomaly known to host mineralisation just 100s of meters away at the Dona Lake historic mine, which produced 246,500 ounces at an average grade of 6.6g/t gold up to 1993. Dona Lake is held by TSX-V listed Metals Creek Resources.
Ardiden has also been data mining around the South Limb prospect where it holds a very handsome 8km worth of strike of prospective rocks, south of the Dona Lake mine. Company Geologists have turned up historical drilling intercepts around this prospect such as 0.5 meters grading 7.8 grams per tonne gold from only 8m down-hole.
Importantly, the big historic mines in the region all have relatively small surface footprints, which is significant as it reinforces the need for explorers to investigate isolated surface anomalies very carefully. For example, the Dona Lake ore body only spanned 130m in length but was mined to a notable depth of 450m.
The old data has identified grab bags of new targets in addition to the new geophysical data and the company can now confidently locate its drill holes to test the best targets.
The old Canadian gold mines in the region are renown for producing high grades – Pickle Crow for example ran at an average grade of 17.8g/t gold and with Ardiden’s new targets that have never been fully tested, the potential of this prospective ground at the West Pickle and South Limb, remains to be realised.
Ardiden CEO and Geologist, Rob Longley said: “The identification of these new targets at Pickle Lake underscores our commitment to add to the quality gold resources announced at Kasagimminis. Our geophysical survey has successfully delivered targets and aligns with our planned drilling approach in 2020.
We have a good mix of known gold deposits, anomalous gold prospects and untested yet highly-prospective ground, so our opportunities for resource growth and new discoveries are really exciting as well as the opportunities of aggregation of gold-prospective land holdings within the Pickle Lake area.”
Ardiden recently tabled a maiden resource of 110,000 ounces grading a very respectable 4.4g/t gold at its Kasagiminnis deposit.
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By Matt Birney
