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Metals Creek Resources has intersected visible gold in the first two drill holes of its current program at the Ogden gold project, 6 km south of Timmins. The project is a 50/50 joint venture with Discovery Silver, with Metals Creek as operator.
"Intersecting visible gold in these first two holes is highly encouraging and validates the potential that we believe TOG holds," said president and CEO Alexander (Sandy) Stares. "These holes were designed to test areas where historical intercepts showed no visible gold in drilling, but due to the extensive alteration we now believe this area has a much higher potential, which provides further confirmation that this area warrants significantly more drilling."
The program targets the lower portion of the Thomas Ogden Zone (TOG) fold structure, which plunges shallowly to the east. High-grade gold at TOG is strongly associated with the fold axis, typically in flat-lying quartz-bearing structures and zones of strong albitization, silicification and quartz flooding with disseminated pyrite. Structural data from the last campaign suggested one gold-bearing quartz vein set, trending sub-parallel to earlier drill holes, was being underrepresented, so the current holes were collared at a different orientation to cross-cut that vein set along with the other generations of gold-bearing veins.
Hole TOG-26-75, designed to extend the down-plunge reach of the high-grade mineralization, encountered visible gold at 326 metres in a highly silicified felsite unit with cross-cutting quartz veinlets along hairline fractures. Earlier drilling on the same structure returned 9.2 g/t gold over 4.47 metres in hole TOG-21-065A and 3.66 g/t gold over 14.66 metres in TOG-22-74A.
The second hole also hit visible gold in silicified felsite with disseminated pyrite, observed at several points through a 3.5-metre zone of quartz flooding at about 304.5 metres downhole.
Assay results will be released as they are received and compiled. The company cautions that visible gold in core is encouraging but not a definitive indicator of grade or continuity — assays are required to determine actual gold content.
Ogden covers more than 8 km of strike along the Porcupine-Destor Break, the key conduit for gold mineralization in the Timmins camp. The property sits between Pan American Silver's West Timmins mine and Galleon Gold's West Cache development to the west, and Discovery Silver's Dome mine and mill complex 8 km to the east. Metals Creek picked up the project in November 2008 through an option joint venture agreement with Goldcorp, now Discovery Silver.
Six zones of mineralization have been identified to date — Naybob North, South and West, Porphyry Hill, Thomas Ogden and Thomas Ogden West — with Naybob South and TOG seeing most of the work. Drill highlights include 210.19 g/t gold over 12.53 metres from TOG-13-25 and 9.24 g/t gold over 6.61 metres from Naybob South. Drilling a kilometre west of TOG returned 5.06 g/t gold over 2.6 metres, with a follow-up hole cutting 4.96 g/t over 3.97 metres and a second zone of 1.43 g/t over 14 metres — underscoring the potential of the property's lightly explored western portion, contiguous with Galleon Gold's ground.
Metals Creek is a junior exploration company that has earned a 50% interest in the Ogden property, including the former Naybob gold mine. The company also holds helium and natural white hydrogen exploration licences in Newfoundland, staked 50/50 with Benton Resources.