The West Timmins camp and Chapleau areas of northeastern Ontario continue to be white-hot areas for gold exploration based on activity posted by junior mining companies.
Vancouver's Sanatana Resources announced it has pocketed exploration permits to go more in-depth on its 2,200-hectare Gold Rush Project.
The property is 25 kilometres west of Timmins and 11 kilometres northwest of Pan American Silver's Timmins West Mine.
The planned program includes mechanized stripping, channel sampling and ground based geophysics.
The data gathered will be used to pick locations for when the drill rigs arrive in January.
Prior to obtaining the permits, company president Buddy Doyle said in a news release that his crews have been on the ground since August, prospecting and collecting rock-chip samples from new and historical zones of interest. They've also flown a drone magnetic geophysical survey over the project.
The property hasn't seen any serious exploration effort since the 1930s. Only one area, called the DeSantis Shaft, was ever drilled off, and only down to 30 metres.
“Now the permit is in hand we have arranged for an excavator to commence work, mobilized today, on the North Shaft area where we have recently received encouraging grab sample results," said Doyle.
"Trenching and channel sampling will follow. Tenders for the ground geophysics are in place. We are now able, for the first time, to apply modern exploration methods in a focused program to the entire group of claims.”
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Melkior Resources has started a 3,800-metre drill program on its Carscallen Project, 25 kilometres west of Timmins.
The property is six kilometres west of Pan American Silver’s West Timmins Mine.
Melkior has an exploration partnership with Kirkland Lake Gold.
In a news release, the company said their aim is drill off an 800-metre-long trend dubbed Zam Zam Shenkman, which runs to the northwest, where there's been multiple high-grade intercepts recorded in the past.
They're looking to test this gold system for grade and continuity in following up on gold intercepts encountered during preceding fall, winter and spring programs.
The company is also scoping out targets for the next round of drilling in areas where there's been little to no work done.
In a statement, Melkior CEO Jonathon Deluce called the Zam-Zam-Shenkman Trend a "very exciting target" in expressing confidence that they would extend the high-grade veins they've found to date.
Vancouver's Rockridge Resources announced it has fulfilled the terms of an option agreement to acquire complete control of the Raney Gold Project in the Chapleau area.
The Vancouver junior miner is halfway through a 3,000-metre drill program to test a zone which yielded high-grade intercepts
The 2,800-hectare property is 110 kilometres southwest of Timmins and 35 kilometres east of Newmont's Borden Gold Mine. IAMGOLD's and Sumitomo Metals Mining's Cote gold project is 75 kilometres to the southeast.
Rockridge's Raney property had seen limited drilling between 1972 and 1991. More exploration work in 2009 and 2010, resulting in the best drill result ever pulled from the property at 6.5 grams per tonne gold over 8.0 metres.
Earlier this year, Rockridge produced a high-grade intercept of 27.9 grams per tonne over six metres.
This follow-up program began last summer and has continued into this fall to test the depth and strike length potential before they wrap up in the next few weeks.
The company said a drone survey identified a magnetic feature running east and west from where mineralization's been found, suggesting potential extensions to this gold system. A new round of drilling will follow.
Another one of their neighbours is GFG Resources. The Saskatoon explorer is in the midst of an 8,500-metre drill program over some gold targets at its Pen Project.
