Blackstone Minerals has announced it will resume drilling at its flagship Little Gem cobalt-gold project in British Columbia, Canada in the coming weeks.
The first drill hole from the previous campaign returned an exceptional 4.3 metre intersection grading 1.0% cobalt and 15 g/t gold, including 1.1 m @ 3.0% cobalt and 44 g/t gold.
Blackstone was hampered during the initial drilling program late in the 2017 field season with mechanical issues on the rig and poor weather conditions which terminated the program early. Consequently, the incomplete hole did not penetrate the entire alteration zone being targeted but did confirm historic drilling and sampling results from Little Gem.
To prevent a recurrence, Blackstone has selected Radius Drilling for the current program. Radius is one of the province’s premier diamond drilling contractors who specialise in winter conditions.
Blackstone initially plans to complete a further six diamond drill holes at Little Gem, testing a greater strike length of the 300m long target zone at the project.
The company has also released results for a multi-element stream sediment geochemical sampling program recently completed surrounding the Little Gem project.
Anomalous gold results were located in all tributaries surrounding the project area and based on the assays returned, have increased the strike extent of the Little Gem exploratory target corridor to over 1.8km.
Blackstone’s Managing Director Scott Williamson said: “Blackstone is pleased to announce the Company will be recommencing the maiden drilling program at the very high grade Little Gem Cobalt-Gold project over the coming weeks.”
“Stream sediment samples have highlighted a new target zone of greater than 1.8 km strike length at Little Gem. We look forward to first testing the initial 300 m strike target zone near the adits and previous drilling before we focus our exploration efforts on the new +1.5 km strike extensions.”
In addition to Little Gem, Blackstone has a plethora of other gold and base metal exploration targets throughout its 100% owned 335km2 tenement portfolio in British Columbia.
Surface rock chip samples taken from the Roxey prospect, 1.5km west-southwest of Little Gem and potentially along strike from it, returned assays up to 1.9% copper, 24g/t gold and 24g/t silver during geological reconnaissance work last year.
Surface samples taken from the Jewel prospect, 1.1km north-northeast of Little Gem, returned results of up to 3.2% copper and a whopping 98g/t gold, confirming grades of similar tenor to historic underground and surface channel rock chip samples.
Little Gem lies within a 48km strike length of prospective geological and structural targets, with over 60 mineral localities, including the Bralorne-Pioneer mining complex with an endowment of 4.4 million ounces grading 17g/t gold.
Blackstone has also identified a number of priority radiometric and electromagnetic targets at the Project, in a region virtually untested by modern geophysical exploration techniques.
Investors will no doubt be watching closely as Blackstone looks to back up its previous high grade cobalt results in particular at Little Gem.
By Matt Birney
