Epic Gold (CSE: EPG) says a summer of fieldwork at its Hawkins project in northwestern Ontario points to a single district-scale gold and base metal system, rather than the scattered showings earlier explorers worked one at a time.
Hawkins covers 1,266 mineral claims over roughly 26,803 hectares in the Kabinakagami Greenstone Belt, which the company describes as one of the least systematically explored Archean belts in the province. Past work identified many gold and base metal occurrences but largely evaluated each in isolation.
Epic is now linking those occurrences along a 15 kilometre mineralized corridor. It sees that corridor as part of a larger structure that runs 60 kilometres across the property and has seen little modern exploration.
Crews spent five weeks this summer prospecting, mapping and sampling across the Debroy, Goldfields, Johnstone-Barnes, McKinnon and Fold-nose areas, collecting about 465 surface samples. The best result came from Goldfields, where a channel cut across an 11 metre exposure returned 9.42 g/t gold over 11.0 metres, including 32.5 g/t gold over 1.0 metre and 64.7 g/t gold over 1.0 metre. Most of that grade comes from those two 1 metre samples, and true widths are not yet known.
Grab samples returned up to 72.1 g/t gold, with others at 65.0 g/t and 61.2 g/t. Epic said it plans systematic resampling and channel work in those areas.
McKinnon is the most advanced target. It hosts a historical inferred resource of 6.2 million tonnes grading 1.65 g/t gold, or 328,800 ounces, from a 2020 estimate that Epic is not treating as current. P&E Mining Consultants is preparing an update that will include 40 holes totalling 13,145 metres drilled since then, with that estimate expected in November.
Elsewhere, Debroy-Seaview hosts seven parallel gold-bearing veins across a 120 metre wide corridor, and historical trenching at Johnstone-Barnes returned 8.23 g/t gold over 10.7 metres.
Mark Richardson, who has been appointed vice president of exploration, said the company appears to be “dealing with a large mineralized system rather than a collection of isolated showings.” Chief Executive Rod Husband credited Richardson with integrating historical and new data into high priority targets.
The developments follow the company last week closing a C$3.1 million non-brokered private placement, the proceeds from which are to be used for further exploration work.
Epic Gold last traded at $0.25 on the CSE.
