For investors in the mining industry, there’s rarely a day that goes by without pages and pages of press releases to rummage through as explorers trumpet their latest batch of drill results.
Some are certainly eye-catching, with large figures parked boldly in the headline, but closer examination can show that the "big find" was really only across a tiny interval amidst a whole lot of other material that reported to be essentially just rock or dirt. That’s by no means to degrade the importance of a small, high-grade finding, but that finding needs to be strung together with a series of other assay results to show that the miner really has something.
Some further due diligence can reveal whether or not the company is sitting on a prolific piece of property or simply adding their voice to the choir of miners looking for attention through some eye candy of a headline and not much else.
Vancouver-based metal explorer Eagle Hill Exploration Corp. (TSX-Venture:EAG) has tossed around some pretty healthy assay results from its Windfall Lake Property over the last year that when vetted show the property could have astounding gold reserves. Located in the prolific Abitibi mineralized belt of northern Quebec, the Windfall Lake project is a culmination of 362 contiguous claims (covering more than 30,000 acres) that were both independently acquired or part of option agreements that Eagle Hill has with several other large miners.
Just some of the gold findings that have been reported across a strike that potentially could be a whopping seven kilometres wide have included 7.47 grams per ton (g/t) gold over 14 metres; 5.6 g/t over 10.6 metres; 12.21 g/t gold over five metres; and 17.3 g/t over five metres.
Ultimately, those are some "middle of the road" figures as those were isolated cuts from larger intervals, but also included much higher grade finds over shorter distances, such as 52.59 g/t gold over one metre; 64.4 g/t over 0.9 metres; 43.1 g/t gold over one metre; and 37.6 g/t over one metres.
Today, Eagle Hill disclosed more findings as it works the project closer to production. The reports today continued to expand the size of gold zones 27 and Mink (the Windfall Lake Property has seven distinct gold zones), as well as provided info on five other completed drill holes testing the Mallard and the Caribou zones.
Drill hole EAG-12-318 intersected significant gold mineralization close to surface in the upper extension of Zone 27 with 22.85 g/t gold over 25.0 metres. This intersection is in a historically poorly tested area that was originally believed to have low potential until Eagle Hill proved its contention that the area was an extension of the fault from Zone 27 with the cut happening only 65 metres below surface.
"This result confirms the structural extension of Zone 27 through the fault that breaks this gold zone. The expansion of this high grade gold zone now has significantly more potential as we now understand that the gold structure continues through the fault," explained Brad Kitchen, President and Chief Executive Officer of Eagle Hill.
Several intersects were reported in other drill holes today including 25.0 g/t gold over three metres; 31.8 g/t gold over 0.9 metres; and 17.4 g/t gold over one metre.
The results from today can be added to the stack of other consistently strong gold findings at Windfall Lake as the company compiles data for National Instrument-compliant reporting. More assay results are pending from 25 additional drill holes which should have investors carefully watching Eagle Hill as they are amassing quite a collection of impressive gold reports. Proper due diligence is, as always, recommended.
