Manhattan Gold Corporation has kicked off its maiden drilling campaign in Canada with a bang, delivering a spectacular intercept of 41.15 metres at 4.66 grams per tonne (g/t) gold from just 83.82m downhole at its Hook Lake project in Nunavut.
The result from the Jaws gold target included a blistering high-grade core of 7.62m grading an impressive 18.67g/t gold from 85.34m, with two individual 1.52-metre samples returning eye watering grades as high as 41g/t and 33.4g/t gold.
The discovery comes at a time when the gold price is trading significantly higher, now above A$6300, highlighting the potential of Canada’s underexplored greenstone belts. Nunavut is proving to be a hive of activity with major players such as B2Gold advancing large-scale exploration in the region. It is also home to mining giant Agnico Eagle’s 6.7-million-ounce Meliadine operation, 225 kilometres to the northeast, one of Canada's largest gold mines.
Manhattan’s standout drillhole represents a hefty upgrade on the nearest historic hole from the late 1980's, which returned 22m at 2.41g/t gold. The company says its new intercept is both significantly thicker and carries a much higher grade, confirming the presence of high-grade shoots within a broader mineralised envelope.
Adding to the intrigue, the hole ended in mineralisation with a 1.52 metre hit at 0.31g/t gold from 199.64m, suggesting the system potentially remains open at depth.
Manhattan Gold technical advisor Eric Sondergaard said: "These are exceptional first results for Manhattan. An intercept of 41.15m at 4.66g/t gold, including 7.62m at 18.67g/t, materially elevates the scale and grade potential of the Jaws system. The result is materially wider and higher grade than the nearest historic intercept and confirms that Jaws hosts very high-grade shoots within a broad mineralised envelope."
Other assays from the first four holes of the campaign also delivered encouraging results. One hole confirmed a broad mineralised system with a 79.25-metre intercept grading 0.78g/t gold from a shallow 38.10m. Within that zone, a higher-grade slice returned 9.14m at 2.54g/t gold.
Additionally, another hole landed 9.15m at 1.99g/t gold from 153.92m, with a further hole hitting 9.15m at 1.73g/t gold from 35.05m.
Notably, the company says the drilling has materially improved its geological model for Jaws. The new data indicatethe main shear zone lies 20m to 30m northwest of the position inferred from historical records, providing a stronger basis to target what it interprets as high-grade plunging shoots.
The Jaws target already hosts a non-JORC foreign estimate of 3.4 million tonnes at 2.38g/t gold for 285,000 ounces, defined by drilling in the late 1980's.
Manhattan’s maiden reverse circulation drilling program at its 665-square-kilometre Hook Lake project has now surpassed 3000m across 13 drillholes, with a pipeline of assays still pending. Beyond Jaws, the Hook Lake project has a grab-bag of 12 other compelling targets. These include the never-drilled Vanquish, Quantum and Lotus prospects, which have returned surface gold samples of 20g/t, 16.75g/t and 8.01g/t respectively.
With work at Jaws delivering immediate success, the company has already moved the drill rig to its next target, the high-grade Spectre copper-zinc prospect. Spectre is a volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) target with compelling historic drill results, including 10.51m at 2.91 per cent copper, 6.70 per cent zinc, 95.67g/t silver and 1.04g/t gold.
In addition to the drilling, a regional till sampling program is set to fire up shortly to evaluate extensions and other targets within the Omega banded iron formation. An airborne magnetic survey is also underway to refine the geological model across the district-scale project.
With a cracking first-up drill hit significantly enhancing the grade and scale at Jaws, a newly refined geological model to chase more high-grade shoots and the drill rods already spinning at a high-grade VMS target, Manhattan appears to be just getting warmed up in the Canadian north.
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By Murray Ward
