Ardiden Limited has racked and stacked a grab bag of gold prospects at its Pickle Lake project in Canada where the Perth based explorer is spoilt for choice when it comes to aiming a drill rig at them. To-date it has packaged up 18 advanced prospects and 100-plus geophysical targets identified right across the project that already has a resource.
Ardiden holds a maiden 110,000 ounce resource at the flagship Kasagiminnis deposit and an additional nearly 100,000 ounces by way of an historical estimate at the Dorothy and Dobie deposit.
The Dorothy Main and Dobie deposits show some impressive grades going 6.17 grams per tonne gold and 5.5g/t respectively. Ardiden said these resource estimates not established to JORC 2012 requirements, but were reported in 2009 under NI43-101.
The Kasagiminnis deposit sits 40km south-east of Dorothy and forms part of the same regional mineralised system that forms about 120km of surprisingly under-explored strike.
Kasagiminnis’ 110,000 ounce resource grade is also impressive at 4.3g/t gold and the mineralisation is still wide open at depth and along strike to the east and west, according to the company.
With an Exploration Target at Kasagiminnis of 500,000 to 1.2M ounces grading a solid 3.9g/t to 6.6g/t gold, Ardiden is clearly sees some potential in Kasagiminnis.
The deposit boasts some broad drill intercepts such as 21m grading 3.97g/t and 26.2m grading 3.19g/t gold and management has previously noted that the mineralisation has the potential to extend by at least another 5km.
The inferred resource at Kasagiminnis has been defined to about 600m in length and to 280m below surface. At face value, the deposit seems to have a lot of room to move when compared to the neighboring historic Pickle Crow and Central Patricia gold mines that were mined to a depth of 1,158m and 1,220 metres, respectively. These two mines are only about 12km from Ardiden’s West Pickle prospect.
Pickle Crow produced nearly 1.5m ounces of gold at an amazing head grade of 17.8g/t over 31 years to 1966. Central Patricia churned out over 620,000 ounces of gold between 1935 and 1951.
The control on the location of the gold deposits at Pickle Lake is largely structural. Therefore, aeromagnetics work very well as an exploration tool as it will allow Geologists to identify the architecture of the region and predict where mineralised structures may lie.
Ardiden has put its tools to good use recently, identifying over 100 new aeromagnetic targets and counting. The company is even planning on a new and detailed aeromagnetic survey to enhance its existing datasets.
As Ardiden gathers more information, its targeting models and controls on the location of gold deposits will evolve.
With the odds of defining and finding gold deposits partly a game of scientific luck and numbers, Ardiden has tipped the odds in its favor with its early targeting work – now for some success with the drill rig….
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By Matt Birney
