Westhaven stepouts expand Franz gold-silver zone in BC

Drilling at the recently discovered Franz zone at Westhaven Gold's Shovelnose project, 30 km south of Merritt, B.C., continues to hit near-surface, high-grade mineralization.

Highlights of the latest drilling at Franz include 34.1 metres grading 2.07 g/t gold and 16.5 g/t silver from 37.1 metres depth in hole 108. That interval includes 13.1 metres of 4.86 g/t gold and 31.57 g/t silver, and 2.5 metres of 16.88 g/t gold and 99.28 g/t silver.

Hole 107 returned 7.5 metres of 1.93 g/t gold and 23.6 g/t silver from 24.5 metres depth, including a 4-metre interval of 3.15 g/t gold and 31.8 g/t silver.

In September, the first drill results from Franz, discovered in August, returned 7.78 metres of 14.84 g/t gold and 39.4 g/t silver from 18.4 metres depth.

“Drill stepouts along strike have continued to intersect significant gold mineralization at the Franz vein zone,” said Peter Fischl, Westhaven's exploration manager, in a release. “The shallow nature of this mineralization with minimal overburden cover is assisting greatly in the exploration of this recently discovered gold-bearing vein zone. Data from a recently completed mapping and prospecting program in the Franz zone area will be integrated with the drilling here to advance this project further.”

The new zone is located 2.8 km northwest of the high-grade South zone at the project, and the latest drillholes step out the zone to the northwest. The company has so far traced gold mineralization along 3.8 km of strike at Shovelnose.

The latest results are part of a 30,000-metre drill program Westhaven is conducting at the 176.2-sq.-km Shovelnose project, located in the Spences Bridge gold belt.

For more information, visit www.westhavengold.com.