Mining News: Northern Neighbors: Robust drill program targets higher-grade gold at Indin Lake

Nighthawk Gold Corp. July 5 reported the start of a 10,000-meter drill program at its Indin Lake gold property in Northwest Territories. This program, expected to be completed by the end of September, will continue to expand recently discovered high-grade gold mineralization at the Colomac deposit and follow up on the 2014 drilling results at Goldcrest, a sister intrusion located 400 meters west of Colomac. Drilling at Colomac will follow up on the success of Nighthawk’s 2014 and 2015 exploration at Zone 1.5, where hole C14-06 cut 52.5 meters averaging 7.78 grams per metric ton gold and hole C15-04B cut 32.95 meters averaging 4.19 g/t gold. This year’s program also will target select locations within zones 3.5 and 2.0 at Colomac where significant near-surface gaps in the current resource exist. Drilling at Goldcrest will focus on the untested region along strike to the north and continue to extend mineralization intersected in the 2014 program. Holes also are planned for Goldcrest North, an isolated zone of near-surface mineralization in Nighthawk’s current resource located 600 meters northeast of Goldcrest. The objectives of this work are to better define and expand the higher-grade mineralization intersected to date; test for new zones of near-surface higher grade material; and prepare for a resource update in the first half of 2017. Nighthawk President and CEO Michael Byron said, “Given Colomac’s relatively underexplored state, we believe there is strong potential for substantial growth beyond the current resource estimate of 2.101 million ounces gold at 1.64 grams per metric ton. Nighthawk’s significantly low discovery cost of $8 per ounce, with 97.6 percent of its holes intersecting gold mineralization, speaks to the scale of opportunity at hand.”

-Shane Lasley