Olympio Metals managing director Sean Delaney said: “It is great to get a 54g/t gold result near the end of hole … which gives us confidence about the potential at Paquin. The high-grade western zone at Paquin remains open, and we are planning further drilling with the aim of extending this high-grade mineralisation.”
Delaney said that geophysical data and historical drilling suggest the Paquin structure extends more than one kilometre west under shallow glacial cover.
Over at the company’s Amadee prospect, meanwhile, recent mapping has revealed smoky quartz veins similar to Paquin’s gold-bearing veins.
Historical 1940s drilling at Amedee intersected 1.52m grading 6.8g/t gold and 1.52m going 5.6g/t gold, while an old 1978 channel sample yielded up to 49g/t gold.
Olympio’s recent eight holes for 898m of drilling at Amadee identified multiple zones of smoky quartz veining and sulphides from surface to 80m depth, with assays awaited.
The Amadee prospect, which could turn out to be a western extension from Paquin, spans more than 200m of strike aligned with the same east-west striking, north-dipping structure as Paquin on the Cadillac Break.
The company also tested the Decoeur Extension prospect, drawn by its large IP chargeability geophysical anomaly. The prospect is 800m southwest of Amadee on the North Bousquet Fault, a major under-explored Archaean regional east-west trending structure associated with the Cadillac Break.
A single 183m-deep drill hole put into the target intersected smoky quartz-carbonate veining and sulphides near talc-carbonate schists.
The rocks are similar to gold-hosting rocks of the Pichè Group logged in the Paquin drill core and are commonly associated with gold mineralisation along the Cadillac Break.
The associated IP chargeability anomaly remains unexplained for now, but assays due later this month may offer Olympio some answers.
At the Decoeur prospect, where gold is also associated with Pichè Group rock types, a 408m hole targeted the footwall contact along the Bousquet Fault, intersecting stock-worked smoky quartz veins and sulphides above a talc-chlorite schist. The company expects to receive these assay results later this month.
In its ongoing work, Olympio will continue drilling across its Bousquet project to refine targets and test extensions at Paquin, Amadee, Decoeur and the Decoeur Extension.
The company’s focus on the proven mineralised Cadillac Break and associated major regional-scale structures, such as the north Bousquet Fault, underscores the region’s world-class gold potential.
This potential is resoundingly hammered home by the closeness of millions of gold ounces at the nearby LaRonde, Westwood and Radisson’s 1-million-ounce O’Briens gold operations, which are all within 10km east of Olympio’s Bousquet project tenure and lie on the same or related structures.
Additionally, Hosco’s 1.8-million-ounce and Hecla Mining’s 0.3-million-ounce Heva gold projects both lie within 5km of the western end of the company’s project boundary.
Olympio’s high-grade gold discovery at Paquin, including 1.5m at 54.2g/t – or 1.7 ounces of gold per tonne – confirms earlier results, highlighting Paquin’s potential in the context of the proven prospectivity of these parts of the Cadillac Break.
In addition to Paquin, the encouraging veining at Amadee, untested anomalism at the Decoeur Extension and mineralisation at Decoeur, all tied to the Bousquet Fault, signal plenty of robust exploration upside.
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