GOLD: Aston halts drilling in Virginia

VIRGINIA - Aston Bay has announced that, as a precautionary measure in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, it has decided to pause drilling operations at its Buckingham gold property in central Virginia in the U.S. In a press release, the Toronto-based company said that before halting activities, its field team completed 1,218 metres of drilling in 10 diamond drill holes. The plan is to eventually complete 2,000 metres of drilling. “The current drill program comprises follow-up and step-out drilling at the Buckingham Main Zone. Quartz veining and/or silica-sulfide-sericite alteration were present in all 10 holes, expanding on Aston Bay’s successful 2019 drill program,” the media brief states. “Alteration and veining were intersected up to 65 metres to the northwest and 35 metres to the southeast along strike from the 2019 drilling. In addition, quartz veining was intersected in a step-back hole at a downhole depth of 95.7 metres.” According to Aston, the Buckingham Main Zone consists of a series of visible gold-bearing quartz vein outcrops that occur along a strike length of over 150 metres with rock grab sample assay values of up to 701 g/t gold and recent drill intercepts of 35.61 g/t gold over 2.03 metres and 24.73 g/t gold over 3.57 metres. “We are very encouraged by the visual results in the step-out and step-back drilling at our Buckingham property,” Thomas Ullrich, Aston Bay’s CEO, said. “We look forward to the assays from these holes, as well as resumption of drilling at both the Buckingham Main Zone and the recently discovered Buckingham East Zone.”