In August 24 2015, the Company announced that it had requested a police investigation into certain accusations made by an NGO about the Company in their re-appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court. On December 18 2015, Mawson was informed by the Rovaniemi police that it will not proceed with the case. The Rovaniemi police have subsequently informed the Company that they have reassessed the case and have commenced interviewing members of the NGO.
Mawson Resources Limited provided an update on the 4,000 metre winter drill program at Palokas in Finland.
Key Points:
- Drill results from the first four holes from the Palokas prospect and one hole from Hirvimaa are now available;
- All holes at Palokas have intersected the mineralized sequence. Only lower tenor gold mineralization has been discovered down dip and along strike from previous drilling, where marginal-style talc alteration predominates;
- Results from Palokas include 4 metres @ 1.2 g/t gold from 152.0 metres in PAL0009, drilled 65 metres down dip from PRAJ0110 (9.2 metres @ 3.2 g/t gold from 82 meters) – refer to Mawson New Release Sept 24 2015 and 3.1 metres at 1.4g/t gold from 150.6 metres in PAL0012, drilled 90 metres down dip from PRAJ0117 (2.0 metres @ 2.8 g/t gold from 66.4 meters, 3.0 metres @ 1.6g/t gold from 65.6 metres and 3.0 metres @ 1.9g/t gold from 109.9 metres) – refer to Mawson New Release Dec 18 2015.
- Results from the first deep drill hole drilled at Hirvimaa, PAL0008, located 680 metres north of Palokas, include 3.0m @ 1.4g/t gold from 31 metres;
- Mineralization remains open down plunge to the north and appears to be truncated down-dip and to the south by these new results;
- The broad mineralized and altered zone has been confirmed with these drill holes, which continues over 1,000 metres along strike and 250 metres down dip. Distribution of higher gold grades is yet to be understood outside the main Palokas mineralized zone;
- The Company continues to drill test the immediate extensions of Palokas, as well as the broader mineralized trend that extends over at least 3 kilometres;
- The three dimensional induced polarization and resistivity survey (“3D IP/resistivity”) is now complete and extends coverage over Palokas to 2.7 kilometres.
Mr. Hudson, President & CEO states, “While we would have preferred a stronger start to the winter drill program at Palokas, we remain mindful these holes are only the start of the first deeper drilling program that tests an extensive gold-bearing system. Our targeting methods using the low resistivity IP and VTEM geophysics are working and clearly define the mineralized host horizon, which we have now drilled over 1,000 metres of strike and intersected in every drill hole. Further away from Palokas, we see broad intervals of lower grade gold, within a 40 metre wide zone (ie drill hole PAL0009) of prospective rocks. As always, high-grade gold distribution is complex, and our drilling continues to help build up a picture of this extensive gold system.”
To date six holes have been completed at the Hirvimaa and Palokas prospects for 1,260 metres. Drilling has been slower than anticipated due to longer ramp up and cold conditions during January, however the program is now on track to complete 4,000 metres as planned, should winter conditions last until mid-April. The first five holes from the program as reported here are PAL0008, PAL0009, PAL0010, PAL0012 and PAL0013 (Table 2). PAL0008 was drilled at Hirvimaa (Figure 5). PAL0009-PAL0013 were drilled at Palokas (Figures 1-4). PAL0011 was a short test hole of 11.8 metres to commission a drill rig outside the Natura 2000 areas and PAL0014 was abandoned at 19.9 metres due to drilling issues. PAL0015 has yet to be cut and assayed.PAL0016 and PAL0017 remain in progress (Table 1).
The true thickness of mineralized intervals is interpreted to be approximately 90% of the sampled thickness. A plan map of drilling at Palokas is shown in Figure 1, with representative cross sections shown in Figures 2-4. Figure 5 shows a plan map of the Rajapalot project area which shows the drill plan over the broader prospect area.
The remainder of the winter drill program (Figure 5) will target:
- The down plunge and open northerly extensions of the Palokas mineralization below drillholes PRAJ0113 and PRAJ0114 which respectively intersected 20.6 metres @ 2.7g/t gold from 56.8 metres and 7.0 metres @ 7.2 g/t gold from 61.1 metres;
- The two largest low resistivity IP anomalies 350 metres south of Palokas;
- The undrilled 600-metre-long mineralized trend between Palokas and Hirvimaa;
- The area located 1,000 to 1,200 metres south of Palokas, to follow up geophysical targets, gold mineralized boulder fields and shallow drilling results which include 0.3 metres @ 49.6 g/t gold from 17.7 metres in PRAJ0097 and 3.9 metres @ 3.3 g/t gold from 24.1 metres in PRA0076 – refer to Mawson News Release Dec 16 2014;
- A series of drill hole fences through the 400-metre-long by 100-metre-wide Rumajärvi boulder field, located 1,500 metres south of Palokas, where 68 boulders assay >0.1g/t gold with an average of 149g/t gold and range from 0.11g/t gold to 3,870g/t gold – refer to Mawson News Release Feb 18 2014.
Mawson, in conjunction with all environmental authorities, are ensuring that all parts of the exploration programs are undertaken with minimal environmental impact. Baseline mapping of habitats and vegetation were completed during the summer and autumn. Mapping and identifying the nature values of the area ensures that threatened and endangered species are not negatively affected by exploration activities.
In other news on August 24 2015, the Company announced that it had requested a police investigation into certain accusations made by an NGO about the Company in their re-appeal to the Supreme Administrative Court. On December 18 2015, Mawson was informed by the Rovaniemi police that it will not proceed with the case. The Rovaniemi police have subsequently informed the Company that they have reassessed the case and have commenced interviewing members of the NGO.
