VANCOUVER, BC, Dec. 28,
2023 /CNW/ - Nevada King Gold Corp. (TSXV:
NKG) (OTCQX: NKGFF) ("Nevada
King" or the "Company") is pleased to review the
significant advancements at its 100%-owned Atlanta Gold Mine
Project achieved during its 2023 exploration campaign. The 2023
drilling program both advanced resource definition drilling in
established zones and leveraged off new geologic modeling to
discover several significant new high-grade zones.
2023 Corporate Highlights:
- Drilled seven diamond drill holes and 202 reverse
circulation holes at Atlanta
accounting for over 50,000 metres during the 2023 calendar
year. Over 30,000m from 109
drill holes are currently pending assay and release.
- Solidified its strategic land holdings in the Atlanta district by staking an additional 469
claims (39.8km2) to fully surround and build a
geological buffer around the Atlanta caldera.
- Raised $16.25-million at a
price of $0.45 per
share. Founder & CEO Collin
Kettell and all of the management team participated in the
financing for over $2 million with
much of the balance subscribed for by insiders and significant
shareholders. Over 55% of the shares of the Company are held by
insiders and large shareholders who continue to be strong
supporters of the Company.
- Expanded Phase II drill program from 20,000m to 60,000m
following a series of exploration successes that leveraged off new
geological modeling. The Company has now drilled over
70,000m and is planning to provide
guidance on a further increase in January.
Atlanta Exploration & Drilling Highlights:
One year ago today, Nevada King
released an updated geologic model that represented a significant
departure from the historical interpretation of the Atlanta Au-Ag
epithermal system. The prior model constrained the distribution and
tenor of gold mineralization to a single fault structure.
Nevada King's new geologic model
projected a series of high-angle faults through the Atlanta system that were each interpreted as
potential conduits for channeling gold-bearing hydrothermal fluids
into the Atlanta deposit. The 2023
drilling was successful in confirming new high-grade discoveries in
areas within and proximate to these projected feeder structures and
allowed the Company to track high-grade mineralization along a
multitude of structures throughout the Atlanta deposit.
The 2023 program generated a significant amount of drill results
which, along with ongoing updated interpretation, was disclosed in
24 news releases. The Atlanta
drill results and accompanying cross sections and plan maps
provided a developing narrative over an expanding mineralized
footprint including numerous thick and high-grade mineralized drill
intercepts.
Today, the Company is pleased to release a new map of
Atlanta presenting the progressive
success of its exploration and definition drilling that began in
2021 as part of its Phase I drill program (shown in green),
followed by its Phase II program in 2022 (blue) and expanded Phase
II program in 2023 (orange). Results from drill holes reported to
date are color and shape coded to illustrate gold grade and
thickness, respectively. Primary fault structures are overlayed in
black dashed lines. Following Figure 1 is a brief description of
the 2021, 2022, and 2023 results and a look at what is to come in
2024.
2021 Phase I Drilling:
The Company's inaugural Phase I, 2021 drill program consisted of
68 drill holes totaling 5,544m and
was focused on exploring three areas that were historically
underexplored or never tested. This included testing for
mineralization from within the Atlanta pit, to the east of the pit, and along
trend, 500m north of the pit. In each
of these areas, the Company's drilling successfully intercepted
significant oxide gold mineralization.
At the bottom of the Atlanta
pit, a fence of five holes interesected high-grade gold
mineralization including 54.9m
averaging 5.34 g/t Au in AT21-62 and 64m averaging 3.35 g/t Au in AT21-64
(released January 12, 2022 and
January 20, 2022).
At 560m north-northwest of the
Atlanta pit, the Company
encountered 9.1m averaging 8.26
g/t Au within an overall intercept of 18.3m grading 4.64 g/t Au in AT21-003
(released November 22, 2021).
This hole was drilled 240m north of
the Gustavson 2020 pit-constrained resource zone and clearly
demonstrated the high-grade potential along the northern extension
of the East Atlanta Fault.
Drilling to the east of the pit also encountered gold
mineralization starting at surface, including 37m of 0.65 g/t Au in AT21-38A and 32m of 0.59 g/t Au in AT21-38, highlighting the
potential for an eastern expansion of the resource area (released
January 12, 2022).
In summation, initial 2021 drilling demonstrated the existence
of fault offsets within the mineralized zone and intersected a
number of shallow, high-grade mineralized zones both at the bottom
of the historical Atlanta pit and
well north of the resource area that were not identified in
historical drilling.
2022 Phase II Drilling:
Phase II drilling commenced in June of 2022 and was designed to
further test mineralization at the bottom of the pit together with
better defining the westward extension of gold mineralization
across a 100m to 150m-wide shear zone termed the Atlanta Mine
Fault Zone ("AMFZ"). Mineralization in the AMFZ is almost
exclusively confined to a dense, sub-horizontal silica-breccia
horizon that formed along the erosional unconformity separating
younger volcanics from underlying older dolomite and quartzite.
This breccia horizon tends to be higher-grade and thicker along the
eastern side of the shear zone where hole intercepts typically
average 1-3 g/t Au over 30-50m
thicknesses. The AMFZ was drilled by prior operators and the
easternmost fault strand (East Atlanta Fault) was historically
mined, but historical operators failed to recognize the presence
and significance of the multiple feeder structures and
geometrically complex west-dipping mineralized blocks comprising
this broad structure zone, and consequently had no effective
geological model with which to interpret their widely-spaced drill
results.
The Company focused on drilling the AMFZ with a series of
vertical hole fences and successfully identified high-grade gold
mineralization. Intercepts included 3.41 g/t Au over
54.9m in AT22NS-46 and
2.65 g/t Au over 50.3m in
AT22NS-59 (released October 18,
2022), as well as 3.19 g/t Au over 32m in AT22NS-83T and 2.9 g/t Au over
28.1m in AT22NS-81T
(released December 5, 2022). Drilling
south of the pit intercepted 77.7m of 0.62 g/t Au in AT22-RC9 and
41.2m of 1.05 g/t
Au in AT22-RC10, showing that gold mineralization
continues along the southward extension of the AMFZ. These areas,
which were largely ignored by previous explorers, returned
higher-grades over thicker intercepts than seen in past drilling in
the vicinity, thus demonstrating good potential for encountering
additional mineralization further southward.
2023 Drilling:
In early 2023, the Company stepped further westward from the
AMFZ into the Atlanta caldera,
revealing the existence of a 150m-wide graben hosting gold mineralization both
within Tertiary volcanics and along the unconformity separating
volcanics from underlying Paleozoic sediments. Termed the West
Atlanta Graben Zone ("WAGZ"), this area is characterized by
long drill intercepts that can exceed 150m in thickness and range in average grade from
0.5 g/t to 1.5 g/t Au. Examples include 2.31 g/t Au over
71.7m in AT22WS-2 (released
February 13, 2023), 1.03 g/t Au
over 181.4m in AT22SE-4 and
0.98 g/t Au over 163.1m in AT22SE-42 (released
March 20, 2023), and 2.74 g/t Au
over 89m in AT22HG-8T
(released April 3, 2023). Once the
WAGZ's structural setting was drill-defined, Nevada King was quick to recognize the strong
potential within this this down-dropped volcanic basin for
significantly adding tonnage to the Atlanta system.
Drilling throughout 2023 continued to test mineralization along
the AMFZ and within the WAGZ while concurrently discovering and
testing major feeder structures controlling both mineralized zones.
The boundary between these zones coincides with the West Atlanta
Fault ("WAF") and adjacent West Atlanta Fault #1
("WAF1"), both of which appear to be major controlling
structures for the Atlanta deposit
with respect to localizing shallow intrusive activity and serving
as the main hydrothermal feeders for the epithermal system.
Drilling along the WAF and WAF1 encountered several instances of
high-grade gold and silver mineralization including 1084 g/t Ag
and 5.27 g/t Au over 10.7m in AT22HG-18 (released
April 20, 2023).
Figure 1 above shows the distribution of gold grade and
thickness reported to date in relation to the areas drilled during
the past three years. The westward increase in intercept thickness
is apparent due to the influence of the WAGZ, whereas higher gold
grades are scattered around the deposit but generally occur
proximal to major structures. Nevada
King's closer spaced drilling along these major structures
has connected the higher-grade intercepts together along strike,
forming a grid-like pattern of high-grade along structures and
lower-grade between the structures. The net effect has been to
reveal higher-grade portions of the deposit that were not apparent
from the more widely-spaced historical drill holes.
In addition, following these main structures has allowed for
significant expansion well outside the existing resource zone to
the south, the west, and to the north. In October, the Company
released results from an area immediately south of the resource
zone in a blind discovery that included 2.15 g/t Au over
96m in AT23HG-34 and 1.89
g/t Au over 114.3m in
AT23HG-37 (released October 17,
2023). Meanwhile, drilling in the North Extension target
600m north of the Atlanta Pit
continued to encounter high-grade gold mineralization including
4.01 g/t Au over 21.3m and 3.69 g/t Au over
13.7m (released September 27, 2023).
2024 Drilling:
Looking to 2024, Nevada King's
Atlanta resource expansion and
definition program will focus on closely spaced drilling along
major structures to test and expand the very high-grade zones (or
"jewelry boxes") recently discovered towards the end of 2023. These
are best exemplified by the October
2023 release of the most gold rich hole ever recorded at
Atlanta with 11.64 g/t Au over
108.3m, including 37.16 g/t Au over
29m, intercepted in the northwest
portion of the resource area within the WAGZ (released October 2, 2023). This was followed by another
record intercept of 6.55 g/t Au and 100.8 g/t Ag over
82.3m, intersected along a
different structure within the AMFZ, (released November 14, 2023). These bonanza-grade zones,
although relatively restricted in size, are very high-grade and
could lead to a boost in the overall grade at Atlanta.
As the 2024 year progresses, exploration drilling will continue
southward from the resource zone along the South Quartzite Ridge
Target and eastward up onto the East Ridge Target. Reconnaissance
drilling will commence in early summer to follow-up on the many
geophysical and geochemical anomalies identified in 2023 throughout
the Atlanta District. With a far
better geological/geochemical/geophysical model for the
Atlanta deposit in hand, the
Company is now much better equipped to cost-effectively look for
other Atlanta-type targets within
a 31 km2 prospective region that is almost completely
covered by post-mineral volcanics, caldera moat sediments, and
thick alluvium.
The strong, high-grade mineralization encountered within the
Atlanta deposit is connected to a
large and relatively long-lived hydrothermal system formed along
the caldera's margin, boding well for identifying similar deposits
around or adjacent to the caldera margin.
QA/QC Protocols
All Reverse Circulation samples from the Atlanta Project are
split at the drill site and placed in cloth and plastic bags
utilizing a nominal 2kg sample weight. CRF standards, blanks, and
duplicates are inserted into the sample stream on-site on a
one-in-twenty sample basis, meaning all three inserts are included
in each 20-sample group. Samples are shipped by a local contractor
in large sample shipping crates directly to American Assay Lab in
Reno, Nevada, with full custody
being maintained at all times. At American Assay Lab, samples were
weighted then crushed to 75% passing 2mm and pulverized to 85%
passing 75 microns in order to produce a 300g pulverized split.
Prepared samples are initially run using a four acid + boric acid
digestion process and conventional mutli-element ICP-OES analysis.
Gold assays are initially run using 30-gram samples by lead fire
assay with an OES finish to a 0.003 ppm detection limit, with
samples greater than 10 ppm finished gravimetrically. Every sample
is also run through a cyanide leach for gold with an ICP-OES
finish. The QA/QC procedure involves regular submission of
Certified Analytical Standards and property-specific
duplicates.
Qualified Person
The scientific and technical information in this news release
has been reviewed and approved by Calvin R.
Herron, P.Geo., who is a Qualified Person as defined by
National Instrument 43-101 ("NI 43-101").
About Nevada King Gold
Corp.
Nevada King is the third largest
mineral claim holder in the State of
Nevada, behind Nevada Gold
Mines (Barrick/Newmont) and Kinross
Gold. Starting in 2016, the Company has staked large project
areas hosting significant historical exploration work along the
Battle Mountain trend located
close to current or former producing gold mines. These project
areas were initially targeted based on their potential for hosting
multi-million-ounce gold deposits and were subsequently staked
following a detailed geological evaluation. District-scale projects
in Nevada King's portfolio include
(1) the 100% owned Atlanta Mine, located 100km southeast of
Ely, (2) the Lewis and Horse
Mountain-Mill Creek projects, both located between Nevada Gold Mines' large Phoenix and Pipeline mines, and (3) the Iron
Point project, located 35km east of Winnemucca, Nevada.
The Atlanta Mine is a historical gold-silver producer with a NI
43-101 compliant pit-constrained resource of 460,000 oz Au in the
measured and indicated category (11.0M tonnes at 1.3 g/t) plus an inferred
resource of 142,000 oz Au (5.3M
tonnes at 0.83 g/t). See the NI 43-101 Technical Report on
Resources titled "Atlanta Property, Lincoln County, NV" with an effective date of
October 6, 2020, and a report date of
December 22, 2020, as prepared by
Gustavson Associates and filed under the Company's profile on
SEDAR+ (www.sedarplus.ca).
Resource
Category
|
Tonnes
(000s)
|
Au
Grade
(ppm)
|
Contained Au
Oz
|
Ag
Grade
(ppm)
|
Contained Ag
Oz
|
Measured
|
4,130
|
1.51
|
200,000
|
14.0
|
1,860,000
|
Indicated
|
6,910
|
1.17
|
260,000
|
10.6
|
2,360,000
|
Measured +
Indicated
|
11,000
|
1.30
|
460,000
|
11.9
|
4,220,000
|
Inferred
|
5,310
|
0.83
|
142,000
|
7.3
|
1,240,000
|
Table 1. NI 43-101 Mineral Resources at the
Atlanta Mine
Please see the Company's website at www.nevadaking.ca.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services
Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX
Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or
accuracy of this release.
Cautionary Statements Regarding
Forward Looking Information
This news release contains certain "forward-looking
information" and "forward-looking statements" (collectively
"forward-looking statements") within the meaning of applicable
securities legislation. All statements, other than statements of
historical fact, included herein, without limitation, statements
relating the future operations and activities of Nevada King, are forward-looking statements.
Forward-looking statements are frequently, but not always,
identified by words such as "expects", "anticipates", "believes",
"intends", "estimates", "potential", "possible", and similar
expressions, or statements that events, conditions, or results
"will", "may", "could", or "should" occur or be achieved.
Forward-looking statements in this news release relate to, among
other things, the Company's exploration plans and the Company's
ability to potentially expand mineral resources and the impact
thereon. There can be no assurance that such statements will prove
to be accurate, and actual results and future events could differ
materially from those anticipated in such statements.
Forward-looking statements reflect the beliefs, opinions and
projections on the date the statements are made and are based upon
a number of assumptions and estimates that, while considered
reasonable by Nevada King, are
inherently subject to significant business, economic, competitive,
political and social uncertainties and contingencies. Many factors,
both known and unknown, could cause actual results, performance or
achievements to be materially different from the results,
performance or achievements that are or may be expressed or implied
by such forward-looking statements and the parties have made
assumptions and estimates based on or related to many of these
factors. Such factors include, without limitation, the ability to
complete proposed exploration work, the results of exploration,
continued availability of capital, and changes in general economic,
market and business conditions. Readers should not place undue
reliance on the forward-looking statements and information
contained in this news release concerning these items. Nevada King does not assume any obligation to
update the forward-looking statements of beliefs, opinions,
projections, or other factors, should they change, except as
required by applicable securities laws.
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