New Carolin Gold Corp.: Underground Diamond Drilling to Commence at Ladner Gold Project
October 4, 2019 - New Carolin Gold Corp. (the "Company" or "New Carolin") (TSXV: LAD | OTCBB: LADFF) is pleased to announce that it has completed underground preparations required for the 2019 underground drilling program on its 100% owned Ladner Gold Project in anticipation of commencing drilling next week. Preparations have included rehab of 220 meters of underground workings and preparation of a drill bay at the end of the 877m level. Drilling is planned to commence next week with the initial phase of the program including up to 1,000 meters of underground diamond drilling at the Carolin Mine. The Company will also be conducting a detailed mapping and sampling program to generate near surface drill targets near and beneath the four other historic mines and 24 known gold occurrences within the Ladner Gold Project.
It is the Company's plan to continue drilling within the immediate footprint of the Carolin Mine with an emphasis on expanding the existing resource while generating near term drill targets by conducting surface exploration on the property. Surface exploration will include following up on areas surrounding historic workings with anomalous historic results returned from drilling, trenching, and geochemical surveys.
Management is optimistic on the current target generation work being conducted. Data compilation from four historic mines that have had minimal activity since the early 1980s has been brought into a regional context to prioritise areas for follow up surface exploration that will assist with future drill hole targeting. Data compilation of historic drilling, surface exploration work and review of MINFILE showings on the property demonstrate the potential for additional mineralisation surrounding and at depth below historical workings.
Some of the exploration targets include:
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- Aurum Mine, located 300 m south of the existing Carolin Mine, recorded 525 ounces("oz") gold ("Au") from 495 tonnes in 1910 and 1925;
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-Emancipation Mine, active between 1916 and 1941, recorded 2800 oz Au from a total of 1158 tonnes mined and is located 3 kms south of the Carolin Mine. It had a noted historic intersection of 20.5 grams per tonne ("g/t") Au over 1.5m and a historic surface intersection of 12.7 g/t Au over 1.4 m;
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-Pipestem Mine, located 3 kms north of the Carolin Mine, recorded production of 8460 grams Au from 1500 tonnes between 1935 and 1937. Historic intersections from underground drilling included 0.90 g/t Au over 41m and 3.00 g/t Au over 5m. Historic surface intersections included 4.45 g/t Au over 5m;
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- Ward Mine operated in 1905 and produced approximately 135 oz Au;
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- Montana showing where two tonnes of high-grade material containing 1151 grams of gold were mined in 1925;
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-Lorraine target occurs 300 meters west of the historical Pipestem mine workings and consists of a one kilometer long by 50m to 150m wide > 200 ppb gold in soil geochemical anomaly with grab samples of mineralised quartz veins returning up to 10.1 g/t Au.
Ladner Gold Project
The Ladner Gold Project is located approximately 23 kilometres north east of Hope, BC along the Coquihalla Hwy. It comprises a 144 square kilometer property area that extends 28 kilometers along strike of the Coquihalla Gold Belt, an elongated north west to south east belt of serpentinised ultramafic rocks bounded by the East and West Hozameen faults. This rock unit and fault system separates the Hozameen Group (an obducted ophiolite sequence) to the West from the Ladner Group metasediments and Spider Creek Formation volcanics to the East. The Hozameen fault system is a regional-scale structure that exhibits strong control on the distribution of five (5) historic mines (Carolin, Emancipation, Aurum, Pipestem and Ward) and 24 known gold showings, all within the Company's land package.
Mineralization is associated with disseminated sulphides within the sedimentary sequences, high grade quartz veins and in contact zones with serpentinite emplacement, extends through the mountainous terrain for over 28 kilometers and outcrops at elevations with over 100's of meters differential. Management believes that the remarkable number and distance between showings is evidence of a large and robust mineralizing event that has emplaced gold in numerous host environments regionally.
At the Carolin Mine, mineralized zones can be up to 30 meters in true thickness and plunge moderately to the northwest over 700 meters. Historic mining at the Carolin Mine has occurred via eight levels of historic underground workings. The mineralization is exposed at surface in the southeast and is open along trend to the northwest toward the McMaster Zone.
Cursory review and 3D modeling of the Carolin Mine indicates that, in addition to the Main Zone which comprised most of the historic mine production, there exists an additional zone, known as the Hozameen Zone, located 120 meters west of the Carolin Mine trend. It was drill tested using 50 meter spaced diamond drill holes, many completed between 1995-1996, and was drill tested in 2018 with a step out hole that resulted in a 93m mineralized intersection grading 1.39 g/t Au that contained a 7.0 meter interval that graded 5.75 g/t Au.
The rehabilitated underground access at the Carolin Mine will allow drilling on the Hozameen Zone. Holes will be drilled to depth and extend to test the contacts between the Ladner Group metasediments, Spider Peak volcanics and Coquihalla ultramafics, which have returned historical high grade drill hole intercepts such as 9m averaging 11.4 g/t Au between 165.5 meters and 174.5 meters downhole (hole 11050-63), and 7.1 meters averaging 6.43 g/t Au between 154.9 meters and 162.0 meters down hole (11000-71). Due to the limited coverage of historic drilling, the true width and geometry of Hozameen Zone mineralization down plunge is uncertain.
For more details regarding the Company's Ladner Gold Project and Mineral Resources, see the Company's National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report for the Ladner Gold Project dated May 29, 2015 (the "Company's Technical Report") and filed on SEDAR.
Carolin Mine
The Carolin Mine operated from 1982 to 1984 and produced 44,400 ounces of gold from a total of 881,000 tonnes mined grading 3.22 g/t Au. Operations ceased due to a combination of low gold prices and poor gold recovery, which averaged 53% over life-of-mine. However, subsequent metallurgical test work conducted during 1996 by Athabasca Gold Resources indicated floatation recoveries of 83-84% (see the Company's Technical Report) and later 2012 work by New Carolin on McMaster Zone drill core achieved recoveries of 91.3% via floatation and 97.9% through a combination of floatation and cyanidation of floatation tails (see News Release August 9, 2012).
Mineralization within the Carolin Mine is comprised of broad zones of planar sub-parallel quartz-carbonate veins associated with intense albitic alteration, disseminated pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite and pyrite. Veining is most well-developed within competent wacke, conglomerate and siltstone lithologies of the Jurassic Ladner Group. Significantly, mineralization exhibits strong structural control and is focused within the hinge zone of a complex local antiform. Mineralisation is also known to occur at or near the contacts of the Ladner Group, Spider Creek volcanics and Coquihalla ultramafics.
Estimated Resources
The Ladner Project hosts an Inferred Mineral Resource at the Carolin Mine of 2,589,000 tonnes grading 3.34 grams-per-tonne ("g/t"), gold ("Au") for a contained estimate of 278,000 ounces of Au at a 2.0 g/t Au cutoff to represent an underground mining scenario. For open pit mining potential, the reported Inferred Mineral Resource Estimate is 12.3 million tonnes gold averaging 1.53 g/t Au (607,000 ounces gold) at a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off. At the McMaster Zone, there is a near surface Inferred Mineral Resource of 3.4 million tonnes at a grade of 0.69 g/t Au (79,500 ounces gold) at a 0.5 g/t Au cut-off, which contemplates an open pit extraction.
In addition, Carolin Mine tailings contain Indicated and Inferred Mineral Resources of 93,000 tonnes averaging 1.85 g/t Au (5,000 ounces gold), and 445,000 tonnes at a grade of 1.83 g/t Au (24,000 ounces gold), respectively; both at a 1.0 g/t Au cut-off.
Tevor Rabb, P.Geo. (BC), of Equity Explorations Consultants Ltd., is a qualified person for the project as defined by National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Rabb has reviewed and approved the scientific or technical content of this news release as it relates to the Carolin Mine and Ladner Gold Project.
About New Carolin Gold Corp.
New Carolin Gold is a Canadian-based junior company focused on the exploration, evaluation and development of our 100% owned property consisting of 144 square kilometers of contiguous mineral claims and crown grants, collectively known as the "Ladner Gold Project" (Project). The Project is located near Hope, BC in the prospective and under-explored Coquihalla Gold Belt, which is host to several historic small gold producers including the Carolin Mine, Emancipation Mine and Pipestem Mine, and numerous gold prospects.
For additional information, please visit the Company's website at www.newcarolingold.com.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
"Kenneth R. Holmes"
Director
Phone: (778) 379-1275
Toll Free: 1(855) 891-9185
E-mail: ceo@newcarolingold.com
Web site: www.newcarolingold.com
This news release does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy any of the securities in the United States. The securities have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws or an exemption from such registration is available.
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Caution concerning forward-looking information
This news release may contain forward-looking statements that are based on the Company's expectations, estimates and projections regarding its business and the economic environment in which it operates. These statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks and uncertainties that are difficult to control or predict. Therefore, actual outcomes and results may differ materially from those expressed in these forward-looking statements and readers should not place undue reliance on such statements. Statements speak only as of the date on which they are made and the Company undertakes no obligation to update them publicly to reflect new information or the occurrence of future events or circumstances, unless otherwise required to do so by law.