Today, I'm writing about two exploration gold companies in the Maritimes. Often, this part of Canada is not looked at in depth and has in the past been largely untouched and underexplored for gold deposits. I won't be doing a deep-dive like I have with my other pieces on my Compelling Junior Mining series, but hope it gives you a glimpse into the prospectivity of these two Eastern Canada plays that I both own and think have good potential upside in the coming months. Many are expecting a pullback in gold juniors/explorers (currently correcting with gold at $1888 USD / oz this evening); it might be a good time to revisit the junior sector to see what looks interesting.
Northern Shield Resources (NRN.V)
1) A quick introduction
Northern Shield Resources is currently primarily focused on it's Shot Rock and Root & Cellar properties located in Nova Soctia, Canada.
Ian Bliss, the CEO has stated that the property was staked as a prospector approached him at PDAC to tell him about gold in Nova Scotia. He had to money to stake it, but Ian lent him his AMEX card, the properties were staked, and a deal was strike 80 (NRN)/20 (Prospector) to move Shot Rock forward. So far, that bet has paid off and the company appears to be deep into a very interesting looking Low Sulphidation Epithermal gold project.
That prospector is Patrick Bellefontaine and has been awarded the Pulsifer-Horne Memorial Award for the Nova Scotia Prospector of the Year in recognition of his Shot Rock discovery.
The company's current share
structure is below as of May 2020. There are a lot of shares
outstanding, but the company has had a long history and has never rolled
back its share. It's not something I'm concerned with.
2) The potential - Shot Rock
I'll be focusing on Shot Rock as this is the immediate catalyst that could bring a lot of new eyes to the company. Perhaps at a later date I will write about Root & Cellar (information on R&C can be found on their corporation presentation).
- Discovey: Gold-bearing LSE quartz veins in outcrop at Shot Rock after acquiring an 80% stake (PDAC story above). It has been validated to be contain gold and silver within a low sulphidation epithermal system.
- Location: Literally located beside the Transcanada Highway, several epithermal system already identified
- Drilling in 2020 has thus far validated and proven a LSE gold system is present, with gold grades of upto 22.1g/t Au in DDH 20SR-04
- Current drilling is expanding on the first 8 holes of the season, the company put out a news release on July 23rd stating with two higlights
A) "the third drill hole of the second phase of drilling, drill hole 20SR-11, intersected significant widths of veining between a down-hole depth of 162 to 177 m"
Sure, there's no visible gold, that's common in LSE deposits.
Low sulphidation systems can bring along truly bonanza gold and silver grades. Take this example from Japan' Hishikari LSE deposit:
If you listen to the interview with HRA-Coffin and Ian Bliss (YouTube link below), he mentions that similar looking core he's seen have returned up to 3oz/t (~100g/t Au). The assays will ultimately tell us what the core above holds - but a high grade intercept over the lengths visually described would be a significant catalyst for NRN.
B) "Drill hole 20SR-10 was positioned to intersect the same structure that hosts the high-grade gold mineralization reported from 20SR-04 from the first phase of drilling (see press release February 28, 2020) but approximately 75 m deeper."
Given gold grades were as high as 22g/t Au in hole 20SR-04, and given that gold grades increase at depth in LSE deposits, it'll be interesting to see what grades are returned in 20SR-10.
The company is continuing it's Phase 2 drill program, and the following diagram describes it's approach to unravelling this LSE target.