Newrange Gold Provides Exploration Update for Ongoing Work at its Pamlico Gold Project, Nevada
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA / TheNewswire / December 11, 2018 (TSXV: NRG, US: NRGOF, Frankfurt: X6C) - Newrange Gold Corp. ("Newrange" or the "Company") is pleased to provide an update on its ongoing activities and progress achieved toward the objective of reporting a maiden resource estimate for Pamlico in the second half of 2019. Work programs outlined in the Company's news release dated October 25, 2018 are progressing on schedule and management is more confident than ever that Pamlico is a fantastic value creation opportunity for shareholders.
Just received results of cyanide (CN) shake assays for typical mineralization at Pamlico indicate highly consistent and favorable extraction of gold throughout the mineralized drilled area, indicating amenability to heap leaching, a very significant variable in the economic viability of any gold mining project. As planned, the Company also announces that AK Drilling Inc. has mobilized a diamond core drill and support equipment to conduct a first PQ diameter core drill program in the Merritt / Pamlico Ridge Area starting today. The underground sampling of historic mine workings in the highly prospective Pamlico Ridge trend is progressing well and initial results are expected early next year, leading to a drill program to test the best targets identified from the sampling. Overall, 2019 is shaping up to be a pivotal year for Newrange Gold as the Company continues to prove up and expand the vast potential of its Pamlico gold project.
Newrange's President and CEO, Robert Carrington said, "I am extremely pleased with these results as they exceed my expectations for both amenability to extraction and consistency of metallurgical characteristics throughout the zone of mineralization. This supports my long-held opinion that there are no significant metallurgical challenges. As we continue with additional metallurgical testing, the core drilling program will further advance our understanding of the gold mineralization at Pamlico".
CN Shake Assays Results
Cold CN shake assays are widely used in the mining industry as a preliminary means to assess amenability of mineralization to recovery by heap leaching and to identify variations in metallurgical responses that may indicate different types or styles of mineralization that should be tested separately.
The results of 239 samples submitted for cold CN shake assaying indicate that the metallurgical response of gold mineralization at Pamlico is independent of location or depth and does not exhibit any adverse "refractory" characteristics. The samples selected are all Reverse Circulation (RC) drill samples. Of the 239 samples 40 were 0.76 meters long and 199 were 1.52 meters in length. All samples were of pulps that had previously been assayed by fire assay together with suitable standards, blanks and reference materials at either American Assay Laboratories or Insepctorate Labs, both ISO 17025 accredited and of Sparks Nevada and both independent of the Company. All samples above 0.12 g/T Au are individual drill samples within larger mineralized zones that the Company has previously reported. Samples with Fire assay grades less than 0.12 g/T Au had not been reported as containing significant mineralization. The samples were selected across all grade ranges with a broad spatial distribution throughout the zones of mineralization, with the objective of identifying metallurgical variations and characteristics that would be important in guiding more advanced metallurgical testing, including upcoming bottle roll and column leach tests. These results indicate that the gold in mineralization containing less than 4 grams per tonne gold (g/T Au) can likely be efficiently recovered using heap leach extraction while higher-grade mineralization should also be evaluated for conventional milling, which typically yields much higher recoveries than heap leaching.
The greatest variation in extraction appears to be grade related. The lowest grade samples as determined by fire assay: 0.003 - 0.12 g/T Au, returned an average of 315% of the fire assay grade. Obviously, it is impossible to achieve more than 100% recovery by any method. The results for the sub 0.12 g/T Au grade samples really mean the fire assays underreported the actual contained gold for samples in this grade range and that there is a potential for a lot more gold in this range than has been reported by fire assay. Samples assaying from 0.13 to 4.0 g/T Au returned an average extraction of 93.8% and extraction for samples assaying more than 4.0 to 340.9 g/T Au averaged 61.2%. . All samples were of pulps that had previously been assayed by Fire Assay together with suitable standards, blanks and reference materials at either American Assay Laboratories or Insepctorate Labs, both ISO 17025 accredited and of Sparks Nevada and both independent of the Company. This response is normal for high-grade mineralization in a heap leach environment and demonstrates why most high-grade is sent to a mill circuit. In a typical cyanide mill, solution strength is much stronger than solutions in a heap leach and ground ore is agitated to promote extraction, generally resulting in mill recoveries in the range of 90 to 98% of the gold. The Company is planning a series of metallic screen analyses including fire assay checks going forward to assess the gold grain size and distribution of gold particles, with particular attention to the sub 0.12 g/T Au grade ranges to investigate the best means to address this variance.
These preliminary results show exceptionally consistent levels of gold extraction using cyanide leaching that are independent of depth or lateral distribution in the system. The high extraction of gold in the CN shake assays is consistent with the observed very fine grained "micron" and oxidized nature of gold mineralization at Pamlico.
Additional metallurgical programs are already being planned and will consist of a series of bottle roll tests to more thoroughly assess amenability of mineralization to heap leaching and/or conventional milling for the high-grade mineralization.
Start of PQ Core Drilling Program
Newrange Gold is immediately starting a program of up to 900 feet of shallow, PQ diameter (85 mm) core drilling. This program will test multiple aspects of the Pamlico gold mineralization including:
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-Compare mineralization recovery levels of Core vs RC drilling
-Improve understanding of distribution and controls of high-grade mineralization
-Verify if reverse circulation (RC) drilling could under report in-place gold sample grades by "blowing" fine gold particles into the highly fractured host rock
-Measure Work Index of mineralized rock and design future metallurgical studies
-Evaluate other characteristics important to future resource estimates
-Provide samples for petrographic studies of host rock and mineral related alteration to aid in metallurgical studies
About Pamlico
Discovered in 1884, Pamlico rapidly became known as one of Nevada's highest-grade gold districts. Held by private interests for more than a century until Newrange's acquisition in 2016, the property remained underexplored in terms of modern exploration. Situated within the highly productive Walker Lane mineral belt near Hawthorne, Nevada, Pamlico enjoys excellent access, infrastructure, mild, year-round operating climate and strong political support from Mineral County, one of the most pro-mining counties in the pro-mining state of Nevada. The Pamlico project consolidates multiple historically productive mines with more than 300 individual mine workings on the property.
The table below presents highlights of select drill intercepts from the Company's previous work at Pamlico. Complete drill intercepts are available on the Company's website.
Select Pamlico Drill Intercepts 2017 - 2018 Drilling (All Previously Announced)
Hole | From (meters) | To (meters) | Intercept length (meters) | Gold g/T |
P17-03 | 62.50 | 64.00 | 1.52 | 51.00 |
P17-08 | 30.49 | 51.83 | 21.34 | 13.67 |
P17-10 | 27.44 | 33.54 | 6.10 | 97.94 |
P17-17 | 1.52 | 72.41 | 70.88 | 3.57 |
Including | 8.38 | 12.96 | 4.57 | 43.80 |
P17-18 | 54.12 | 64.02 | 9.91 | 15.27 |
P17-25 | 32.00 | 33.50 | 1.50 | 64.88 |
P17-31 | 0.00 | 2.30 | 2.30 | 12.51 |
And | 27.40 | 29.00 | 1.50 | 13.23 |
P17-32 | 48.00 | 52.60 | 4.60 | 16.87 |
P17-33 | 0.00 | 53.40 | 53.40 | 2.36 |
Including | 34.30 | 37.40 | 3.10 | 18.08 |
P18-47 | 9.15 | 18.29 | 9.15 | 1.09 |
And | 83.84 | 126.52 | 42.68 | 1.43 |
Note: All intercepts are drilled intercept length and may not represent true width. Due to the flat lying nature of high grade structurally controlled gold in historic mines at Pamlico the Company believes but cannot assure the true widths represent 90% or more of the drilled intercept lengths.
Mineralization and geology at Pamlico exhibit many highly favorable characteristics. The entire mineralized system is thoroughly oxidized to depths of 200 to 300 meters below the surface. The volcanic hosted mineralization has no potential for "preg-robbing" carbon and the silica deficient nature of the gold events that occurred very late in the development of the deposit also indicates negligible potential refractory metallurgy usually associated with silica encapsulation of the gold. While very coarse gold does exist in places, the vast majority of the gold is very fine grained with no visible gold found even in the highest-grade samples assaying up to 340 g/T Au. Work to date shows gold occurs as very fine grains, generally less than 20 to 30 microns in diameter, associated with highly friable iron oxide on fracture surfaces and in breccia zones along structures.
Results at mines around the world show that fine grained to micron size gold is highly desirable for modern recovery technologies such as heap leaching and modern mill circuits because the very fine gold grains leach faster and more completely than coarser gold.
The highly fractured nature of the rocks at Pamlico and the style of alteration have promoted the very deep levels of oxidation observed and indicate the rock should also have a low Work Index.
Newrange Gold's work at Pamlico has already identified multiple, highly prospective exploration targets namely: Pamlico Ridge (immediate focus), Gold Box Canyon, the E-W Zone, Pediment and the East Zone, thus confirming that many, large, near surface, oxide gold systems are present across the 1,670 hectare Pamlico property.
About Newrange Gold Corp.
Newrange is an exploration and development company focused on near to intermediate term production opportunities in favorable jurisdictions including Nevada. With numerous drill intercepts of high-grade, near surface, oxide gold mineralization, the Company's Pamlico Project is poised to become a significant new Nevada discovery. Focused on creating shareholder value through exploration and development of high-quality projects, the Company is also committed to building sustainable value for all stakeholders. Further information can be found on our website at www.newrangegold.com.
Quality Control - Quality Assurance
Mr. Robert G. Carrington, P. Geo, a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, the President and CEO of the Company, has reviewed, verified and approved for disclosure the technical information contained in this news release. All CN shake assays were performed at American Assay Laboratories in Sparks, Nevada. Samples were selected from stored pulps of individual drill samples in the Company's warehouse in Sparks, Nevada. All fire assays were performed by either American Assay Laboratories or Inspectorate America Corp as subsidiary of Bureau Veritas. Thirty gram samples for CN leach were split from pulps of previously assayed, drill samples, each sample representing .76 to 1.52 meters length. Samples were leached in a cold aqueous solution with 0.3% CN for 1 hour. Gold bearing solution was then separated by filtration and gold determined by Atomic Absorption. Standards were inserted at a rate of no less than 1:30.
Signed: "Robert G. Carrington"
President & CEO
For further information contact:
Sharon Hebgin Dave Cross
Corporate Communications Chief Financial Officer and Corporate Secretary
Phone: 760-898-9129 Phone: 604-669-0868
Email: info@newrangegold.com Email: dcross@crossdavis.com
Website: www.newrangegold.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statement:
Some of the statements in this news release contain forward-looking information that involves inherent risk and uncertainty affecting the business of Newrange Gold Corp. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.
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