Nevada Exploration announced that it has completed 36 Scorpion drill holes totalling more than 2,600 metres (8,600 feet) at its Kelly Creek Project located along the Battle Mountain-Eureka Trend in north-central Nevada.
The company said that the preliminary results indicate that vectoring using gold and related geochemistry in the groundwater at the Project is leading to increasing gold and related geochemistry in the bedrock and alluvium.
Further to the Company's news release dated February 6, 2017, NGE is using its Scorpion Drill Rig to evaluate several mineralized, structurally controlled, shallow bedrock targets extending north under cover from Silver Standard's Marigold Mine. The objective of this stage of NGE's exploration program is to map the gold and related geochemistry found in the bedrock, alluvial cover, and groundwater at these targets, and to vector towards one or more mineralized footprints large enough to be associated with a major gold deposit.
With its Scorpion Drill Rig, NGE is focusing on completing fences of holes across its main targets at the Project to sample the bedrock, alluvial cover, and groundwater. NGE has now completed fences across the first two targets and a portion of a third. The locations of these Scorpion drill holes are shown on the attached map. The Scorpion drill holes range in depth from 23 to 120 metres (75 to 400 feet), with an average depth of 73 metres (240 feet).
While NGE is waiting for assays from a majority of the drill holes, the initial results show significant and increasing concentrations of gold and related trace-elements in the bedrock (up to 0.15 ppm Au), in the alluvial cover above the bedrock (up to 0.10 ppm Au), and in the groundwater (up to 890 ppt Au). Also of significance, the drilling continues to define areas of very shallow bedrock, as shallow as 20 metres (70 feet), which is considerably shallower than previously believed. NGE expects to provide a detailed update with full results once it has completed the next drill shift, scheduled to end in early May, and received all assays.
Discussing the results, NGE's CEO, Wade Hodges: "We're very excited to share the news that the early results of our Scorpion drilling program at Kelly Creek confirm that we are focusing in on a number of shallow bedrock targets by following increasing concentrations of gold in all three of: the bedrock, the alluvial cover, and the groundwater. This is exactly what we designed this phase of the program to accomplish.
We are exploring in the middle of the Kelly Creek Basin, one of the most mineralized valleys in the heart of the world's highest gold producing jurisdiction by area. With our comprehensive and systematic under-cover toolbox, which includes our Scorpion Drill Rig, we are vectoring into the caliber of high-quality exploration targets that the industry is in desperate need of, and doing so more than 5 kilometres (3 miles) from the nearest outcrop. Our ongoing work at Kelly Creek provides a terrific example of the power of our integrated exploration program to lead the industry to open up the under-cover search space in Nevada."
Additionally, based on the positive results of the Scorpion drilling program at the Kelly Creek Project, the Company is also pleased to report that it has increased its land holdings at the Project by adding an additional approximately 5 km2 (2 mi2) of private land to its Hot Pot Lease Agreement. With this additional land, NGE now controls a combined total of 42 km2 (16 mi2) of both private and BLM mineral rights in the Kelly Creek Basin.