Getchell continues to expand North Fork discovery and intersects multiple extensive gold intervals at Fondaway Canyon

2022.08.18

Getchell Gold (CSE:GTCH, OTCQB:GGLDF) continues to expand the high-grade North Fork Zone at its flagship Fondaway Canyon gold project in Nevada.

Fondaway Canyon is an advanced-stage gold property located in Churchill County, Nevada. Since gold was first discovered there in 1977, the project has been the subject of multiple exploration campaigns along a 3.5-kilometer east-west mineralized corridor (see above), totaling over 700 reverse circulation and core drill holes, small-scale open pit mining of the oxidized zone at surface, and underground development for exploration and bulk sampling.

So far in 2022, six drill holes have been completed at Fondaway Canyon, totaling 2,328m.

Hole FGC22-18

This week, in reporting the results from hole FCGC22-18, Getchell said the drill encountered extensive gold-mineralized intervals, including 5 g/t gold over 43.4m, 2.0 g/t over 29.6m, 4.8 g/t over 12.1m, 1.4 g/t over 27.7m, and 2.0 g/t Au over 22.1m.

“FCG22-18 marks the easternmost drill hole targeting the North Fork gold zone and encountered one of the broader, cumulative intervals of gold, drilled to date at Fondaway Canyon,” Getchell Gold’s President Mike Sieb said in the Aug. 17 news release. “As we step out, we continue to intersect significant gold mineralization reflective of the impressive size and potential of the mineralizing system.”

The second hole of the 2022 drill program, FCG22-18, was collared on the canyon floor on the same drill pad as hole FCG21-16, the last hole Getchell drilled in 2021. It was designed as a 30-meter step-out to the northeast, from the high-grade intercept encountered in FCG21-16.

The FCG21-16 interval had the greatest “gold grade x thickness” value in the 40+ year history of gold exploration and mining on the property, and likely represents a major conduit for the gold mineralizing system at Fondaway Canyon. The interval graded 6.3 g/t over 50.7m at a depth of between 117.5 and 168.2m, including a higher-grade section of 10.4 g/t over 25.0m. The latter interval contained 12 samples reporting over 10 g/t, revealing consistent high-grade gold.

FCG22-18 intersected multiple significant intervals of gold mineralization, encountered from 180.6 to 400 meters down hole. The broader intervals graded 2.5 g/t gold over 43.4m, 2.0 g/t over 29.6 m, 4.8 g/t over 12.1m, 1.4 g/t over 27.7m, and 2.0 g/t over 22.1m.

The latter gold intervals, extending over a 72.6m vertical distance, were found in an area outside and to the east of previous drilling, and 75 meters from the nearest drill hole.

2022 drilling

Getchell previously released results from hole FCG22-17, which hit shallow mineralization starting at 66.1 meters down hole. The upper intercept highlighted 5.4 grams per tonne gold over 51.9m, with a higher-grade interval featuring 17.7 g/t Au over 9.9m.

Assays for the remainder of the hole were reported on July 26. They featured intervals grading 2.0 g/t over 22.9m and 1.9 g/t over 15.9m.

FCG22-17, 18, 19 and 22, collared on the same pad as FCG22-16, were respectively designed to test the immediate western, northeastern, southwestern, and eastern extent of the mineralization encountered in hole FCG21-16.

FCG22-20 tested the mineralization directly below the Colorado Pit in an area that has seen relatively little drilling.

Hole FCG22-21, stationed midway up the north slope of Fondaway Canyon, crosscut the Colorado SW Zone, to assist with modeling and to test the northwest extent of the mineralization. Additional holes are planned from this setup but due to the need to expand the drill pad and sump to accommodate additional drilling, the drill was moved back to the canyon floor in the interim, to continue to expand on the North Fork gold zone discoveries.

Assays are pending for holes FCG19-22.

FCG22-23, collared on the same pad as FCG22-16 at the junction of Fondaway Canyon and the North Fork branch, is in progress and designed to follow up to the northwest on the gold intervals discovered in FCG22-18.

The company says drilling is underway to step out and delineate the rapidly expanding North Fork Zone, which remains open in most directions. Furthermore, with the completion of Getchell’s drill program at its Star project, a second drill rig has arrived at Fondaway Canyon and starting drilling the Pediment Zone (hole FCG22-24).

Pediment Zone

The pediment is a flat plain that fronts the hills and valleys where the rest of the targets are dotted throughout. Underlying the plain is about 25 meters of alluvial (gravel-bed) cover, making for easy overburden removal. 

Visualize a heat source millions of years ago squeezing boiling-hot magma from west to east through the fissures and faults of the Earth’s crust, depositing gold and silver minerals all the way from the westerly range-front, several kilometers up into the hills as far as the Hamburger Hill and Silica Ridge zones. 

The Pediment target is the westernmost known gold mineralized occurrence along the 3.5 km long, east-west trending Fondaway Canyon gold corridor, shown on the map above. 

Two vertical drill holes, completed in 2002 and collared 185 meters apart, were designed to test potential gold mineralization beneath the sediment cover on trend with the Fondaway Canyon E-W gold corridor. Both holes successfully intersected thick lower-grade intersections, with hole 02FC-10 cutting 27.4m grading 0.82 g/t gold, and 02FC-11 intersecting 36.6 m grading 0.52 g/t.  

Upon finishing hole FCG22-24 at the Pediment Zone, the drill rig will be moved to Fondaway Canyon’s Central Area, a nexus for the gold mineralization and host to the Colorado SW and North Fork gold zones, the primary targets for this year’s drill program.

New resource estimate

Results from the three holes that have reported results so far, FCG22-16, 17 and 18, will be incorporated into an upcoming new resource estimate at Fondaway Canyon. The revised estimate should significantly improve upon the 2017 RE, which showed 409,000 oz indicated gold resources grading 6.18 g/t Au and 660,000 oz inferred grading 6.4 g/t Au, for a combined 1.1 million oz. Up to 80% of these ounces are within the Colorado, Paperweight and Halfmoon zones, with the remainder found in parallel veins or splays off the main veins.

Getchell Gold has carried out three drill programs, in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The aim is to significantly upgrade the 2017 resource estimate into a new resource, that will combine the drill results from all three drill programs. The National Instrument 43-101-compliant resource estimate is targeted for late September.

Two consecutive years of field work have resulted in significant discoveries, expanded gold zones and consistently successful drill results. Mineralization within the Central Area’s delineated envelope has been considerably expanded; to date, it ranges 600 meters E-W along strike, 800m down-dip to the SW, and is approximately 100m thick.

Within this envelope, substantial high-grade shear vein structures with significant depth extents contribute to the potential. The drilling has yet to test the full extent of the gold mineralization, which remains open in most directions.

A compelling aspect of Fondaway Canyon is the open-pit/ high grade potential, as demonstrated by the 2021 drill results, and the results so far in 2022.

Our reasons for believing a new resource estimate will improve substantially on the previous (2017) one, are as follows:

• Getchell has discovered three new zones within the Central Area which included Colorado SW; a really high-grade zone close to surface called the Juniper Zone; and the North Fork Zone.

• Getchell’s 16 drill holes from 2020 and ‘21 all hit mineralization. New zones and higher-grade mineralization has been found, and a bigger drill program is being executed this year.

• The 2017 resource didn’t include some very significant assay results from at least seven holes drilled by a former operator, so Getchell is missing some significant drill hole intercepts.  

• The cut-off grade used to come up with the 1.1Moz resource was 3.4 grams per tonne. Lowering the cut-off grade would, in my opinion, add a lot of ounces.

• Most of the +700 holes drilled at Fondaway were quite shallow; a previous operator was looking for heap-leach gold oxide deposits. But there are a lot of deeper holes that have mineralization shot through them, that are in the 0.5 to 3.0 g/t range. None of those intercepts made the 3.4 g/t cut-off, so they were excluded from the 2017 resource.

• Highlights of recent intercepts that never would have been included in the previous resource, include: hole 3 last year had 2 grams (per tonne) over 49m, hole 5 had 1.8 grams over a 90-m intercept, that included 3 grams over 45m. In hole 8 this year Getchell reported 2.8 grams over 24.5m, another intercept lower in the hole had 1.4 grams over 30m. These intercepts are not only really decent grades, they’re over monster-sized widths.

• If we start to look at Fondaway Canyon from a bulk-tonnage perspective, all of the sub 3 g/t intercepts, and there are literally thousands of them, are going to play a role in delivering ounces into a new, much bigger global resource.

Most Nevada gold deposits are a gram per tonne or less. Fondaway Canyon has seven or eight different zones that are all carrying significant grades into a central mineralized area. That’s exciting, and makes this project truly special. Getchell Gold’s stock has held up quite well in a difficult junior resource market. Though currently down about 17 cents from an August 2021 all-time high of $0.73/sh, the stock bounced to $0.70 on July 25. With assays still to come from holes FCG19-22, along with the results from a maiden drill program at the Star copper-gold-silver project, I’m expecting plenty more news flow from Getchell throughout the fall and into 2023.

Getchell Gold Corp.
CSE:GTCH, OTCQB:GGLDF
Cdn$0.54, 2022.08.17
Shares Outstanding 105m
Market cap Cdn$54.1m
GTCH website

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com
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