ONTARIO – The land package containing
Red Pine Exploration’s Wawa gold project hosts numerous historic mines that in their heyday produced more than 120,000 oz. of gold.
The largest gold deposit Red Pine has identified so far on the property, 2 km southeast of the town of Wawa, is called Surluga, and this week the company updated a 2015 resource estimate, and marked an increase in grade, quality and continuity of the gold zones.
The new resource also supports a shift from an open pit development plan to a high grade underground model, the company says.
At a 2.7 g/t gold cut-off grade, the new resource stands at 1.20 million tonnes grading 5.31 g/t gold for 205,000 oz. of gold in the indicated category, and another 2.36 million tonnes grading 5.22 g/t gold for 396,000 oz. inferred.
The company plans to combine the resource at Surluga with one it completed in November 2018 on its Minto Mine South zone, 2,500 metres away. Both deposits remain open at depth and over 95% of the contained ounces in both deposits are between surface and a vertical depth of 350 metres.
Red Pine discovered the Minto Mine South project area in the extension of the historic Minto mine in April 2017. It completed 26,275 metres of diamond drilling between April 2017 and July 2018. After assays were received last autumn, Red Pine unveiled a resource for Minto Mine South of 105,000 tonnes grading 7.5 g/t gold for 25,000 oz. of gold in the indicated category and another 354,000 tonnes of 6.6 g/t gold for 75,000 oz. of gold in the inferred category.
The resource used a 3.5 g/t gold cut-off grade and 100% of the indicated resource is situated at a depth of less than 180 metres, while 92% of the inferred resource lies at less than a 235-metre depth.
The company also said at the time that the resource estimate covered 15% to 20% of the footprint at Minto Mine South.
Red Pine estimates that the combined Minto Mine South and Surluga deposits contain 1.31 million indicated tonnes grading 5.47 g/t gold for 230,000 oz. of gold and another 2.72 million inferred tonnes averaging 5.39 g/t gold for 471,000 oz. of gold.
The two resource estimates were supported by 53,000 metres of new diamond drilling in Minto Mine South and Surluga between November 2016 and January 2019. The resource estimate for Surluga also includes results from the sampling of 42,000 metres of historic drill core that were never previously assayed.
At press time in Toronto, Red Pine was trading at 3.5¢ in a 52-week range of 3.5¢ to 8¢. The junior explorer has 369 million common shares outstanding for a $12.9-million market capitalization.
This story first appeared on www.NorthernMiner.com.
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