Maple Gold has released the results of hole DO-20-281 completed within the conceptual pit shell at the Porphyry zone at the company’s 355-sq.-km Douay project in Quebec. This drill hole returned 164 metres of 0.86 g/t gold starting at 107 metres and includes a number of higher-grade gold zones, such as 75 metres of 1.23 g/t gold as well as 5 metres of 1.71 g/t gold.

According to Maple, these results support the up- and down-dip continuity of mineralization from historical holes.

In addition, the assays from this year’s drilling now appear to connect several new and historical intercepts within a broad zone of mineralization that extends from the top of the bedrock to the base of the conceptual pit shell at the western part of the Porphyry zone. At the end of May, the company announced that drilling in this area returned gold mineralization outside of the resource model.

“We are very pleased with our 2020 drill results from the western part of the Porphyry zone, in particular with the higher-than-deposit-average grades over significant widths, as well as with the hole to hole and section to section continuity; our team is already in the process of defining drillhole locations for the next phase of drilling in this area,” Fred Speidel, the company’s VP of exploration, said in a release.

“Given its characteristics, this area has the potential to positively impact project economics, and given the fact that the northern and eastern limits of this zone are still not fully defined, we intend to further test this area in our next drill campaigns.”

Future exploration within the Porphyry zone will aim to define the limits of the mineralized zones and to upgrade inferred resources.

Last year, the company released an updated resource for Douay with total pit-constrained indicated resources of 8.6 million tonnes grading 1.52 g/t gold for a total of 422,000 oz. and a further 65.8 million inferred tonnes at 0.97 g/t gold totalling 2 million pit-constrained oz.

The underground component includes 5.4 million inferred tonnes grading 1.75 g/t gold for a total of 307,000 oz. The resources are contained within the Porphyry, Douay West, Nika and 531 zones, among others, with cut-off grades ranging between 0.45 g/t and 1 g/t gold.

Douay covers 55 km of strike along the Casa Berardi deformation zone, within the Abitibi greenstone belt.

(This article first appeared in the Canadian Mining Journal)