An extensive trenching and drilling (totaling 9,000 m) program was initiated on the property’s Tony claim block in late June following repeated discoveries earlier this summer of high-grade graphite showings coincident with multi-kilometric conductive anomalies (see press releases dated May 28 and July 9, 2015).
The objective of the work program is to define before year-end the most promising graphite resource among the different mineralized zones on the project in order to come up with a preliminary economic assessment during the first half of 2016. The current partial results concern the South-East Zone of the Tony block; significant partial results for the South-West Zone were presented earlier this month
To date, 33 core drill holes ranging in length from 33 to 183 m were drilled for a total of 4,360 m, the operation generating more than 2,000 samples. The results presented today regard the South-East Zone of the Tony block where six of the holes (totaling 1,014 m) were drilled. Although results are pending for four of these holes, those received for holes TO-15-16 and TO-15-17 both showed long intersections. In particular, hole TO-15-16 returned 3.19% Cg over 160.1 m (160.1 m true width), including higher-grade sectors of 4.04% Cg over 49.5 m, 3.97% Cg over 14.2 m, 3.72% Cg over 28.0 m and 4.76% Cg over 7.4 m.
The location of the drill holes can be observed on the South-East Zone location map above, while the results received to date are presented in Table 1. As seen on the two presented sections, from south to north, the drill holes intercepted a wide graphitic horizon (S1) at least 140 m to 160 m thick. This horizon dips around 45° to the south. Regarding the South-East Zone, drilling suggests that the S1 horizon narrows to the east between sections S-3000 and S-3100, while PhiSpy ground geophysics indicates that it is well developed and close to surface from sections S-2600 to S-3100.
In this context, we believe the geophysical methodology to be very reliable as it has not only been instrumental in discovering the mineralization, but also strongly supports its continuity between the drill sections.
Samples from the 2015 core drilling program were generally 2 m in length (see QC/QA section below). Core barrel size was BTW (4.2 cm). All the holes on the South-East Zone were more or less oriented N3360 (perpendicular to the long axis of the zone), with a dip of 45°.
Assay results have been recently received and compiled for trench TO-15-TR-6, one of a total of five trenches ranging in length from 62 to 198 m that were excavated and sampled during the summer. Trench TO-15-TR-6 has a total length of 192 m; however, some 15% of it could not be excavated because of the presence of large obstacles or excessive overburden.
Correlations with drill-hole TO-15-17 (see section S-2800) suggest the entire length of the trench is mineralized with an average grade of 3.4 % Cg or better. The best individual channel sample result from the trench is 5.76 % graphitic carbon ("Cg") over 2.5 m and a total of 22 samples cumulating 45.5 m in length returned over 5 % Cg. While the northern contact of the mineralized horizon was intersected, the mineralization remains open to the south where overburden over 3 m precluded excavation.
The samples were collected using a portable gas-powered rock saw. Channel samples from the program each measured approximately 2 m in length, 4 cm in width, and 10 cm in height. The trench was oriented approximately perpendicular to the gneissossity whose dip varies approximately from 32 degrees to 50 degrees to the SSE in this area.
