Promising Gold Mineralization North Of Golden Chest Open Pit

COEUR D'ALENE, ID - New Jersey Mining Company reported that recent core drilling intercepted a large interval of potentially bulk-mineable gold mineralization adjacent to the open pit. Informally referred to as the “layback” hole, core drill hole GC 18-175 was recently completed to 96.1 meters.  With the open pit previously drilled on 25-meter centers, the layback hole was designed to fill in a gap in previous core drilling to evaluate the potential for pit expansion to the north.

Rob Morgan, VP of Exploration, said, “The layback drill results show a remarkable pervasiveness and consistency of low-grade gold mineralization, perfect for bulk-mineable, open pit mining.  This demonstrates the potential for open pit expansion – just as the structural characteristics and narrower, high-grade mineralization in the Paymaster holes announced last week are supportive of future underground mining in that area.” 

The layback hole had a run of continuous sampling starting at 40.7 meters, in which 32 of the 34 samples contained anomalous gold.  The drilling successfully encountered the Idaho Fault at 62.5 meters and banded, massive and brecciated quartz veins were found in the favorable quartzite host rock in the first 10 meters below the fault.  Galena and visible gold were both seen in the core.

NJMC CEO and President John Swallow commented “The results of the layback hole and the Paymaster holes continue to show the strength of the Golden Chest’s mineralizing system.  As previously stated, ‘Our drill programs are focused largely on pre-development and development drilling at the Golden Chest – in support of current production at the open pit and ahead of production underground’.  The flexibility of our approach and accuracy of hole placement would not be possible without the hands-on experience of mining on the surface and underground.  I cannot overestimate the skillsets of our team, including what the drill brings to this business.”

Results from the layback hole, the previous core drilling on 25-meter centers, and trenching information from 2017 will be combined with the thousands of open pit bench assays to evaluate possible expansion of the pit to the north.  This engineering study is expected to be completed in the coming months as well as metallurgical testing aimed at identifying an efficient process to treat the lower grade material.  Roughly 71,000 tonnes of mineralized material with an average grade of 3.60 g/t gold have been mined from the pit and milled at the New Jersey Mill, and 56,500 tonnes of material below the mill cutoff grade of 1.8 g/t gold stockpiled at the mine. Approximately 410,700 tonnes of material have been placed in the waste rock storage site at the mine.