Right Location, Right Timing, Right Commodities
There is an old saying in prospecting and mining circles that says, "the best place to find a new mine is next to an old mine" and there are many examples in different locations throughout the world that prove this theory. One place in particluar is the Abitibi gold belt that runs through Ontario and Quebec in Canada. This world famous gold belt is 650 km long by 150 km wide, it extends from west of Timmins, Ont., to Chibougamau, Que., in the northeast. It's not just gold that these companies are exploring for either. New drilling and exploratons is showing new areas of gold, silver, nickel, copper, zinc and even diamonds.
This gold belt has produced over 100 mines and over 200 million ounces of gold since 1901. You can see by the image map below how this entire area has enriched the lives of thousands of everyday people with good paying jobs, turned small explorers into mining giants and put hundreds of millions of dollars into government coffers by way of royalties. It's little wonder so many juniors come here to seek their fortunes.
Of course over the years many small juniors have come here to explore and many have had to pack up and go home empty handed. That's an all familiar story that goes on almost everyday somewhere in the world of mineral exploration. After all, if finding gold mines was easy, everyone would be doing it. Finding your share of these riches takes more than just time and money. It even takes more than being on the right chunk of ground. It takes expert know how and most of all being able to read and understand what your properties are telling you. This is where Aldershot Resources has a good chance at hitting it big. The property they are working on called the Gowganda gold property as seen in the image below is located just a very short distance from Alamos Gold's Young-Davidson which is one of Canada's largest underground gold mines. The Young Davidson mine is situated on the site of two past producing mines that produced one million ounces from 1934-1957. The Young-Davidson open pit mine achieved commercial production on September 1, 2012, and on October 31, 2013, the Company declared commercial production at the Young-Davidson underground mine following the commissioning of the shaft hoisting system. Today the mine sees underground production rates ramped up to design levels of 8,000 tpd.
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The property that Aldershot is working has seen previous drilling from other juniors. Gold values up to 97.6 g/t Au in grabs, with channel samples averaging 3.5 g/t Au over 20 m x 60 m long corridor. Some of the grades from previous drilling programs were quite impressive such as the ones that follow:
- 2.4 g/t over 7.1 m
- 4.7 g/t over 3.1 m
- 82.5 g/t over 0.4 m
- 1.6 g/t over 11.7 m
Going by these past drill results Aldershot embarked on a small follow up drill program of it's own in early 2017. Once drilling was completed the results from the drilling campaign showed very similar grades as Alamos Gold's Young-Davidson mine as you will see in the (2) tables below. Of course the Young Davidson grades are shown as bulk tonnages whereas the Aldershot grades are from individual drill holes. It's the grade of that is of most important interest at this time. One drill result not tabled was released on April 5 2017 in which Aldershot issued the results from a third hole that was drilled during the same program. The results were impressive! 11.52 m of 1.63 g/t gold. Along with these above average gold showings the company also reports high grade cobalt showings. Aldershot is now in the planning stage for a continued exploration program and looking at ways to expand this resource.
Aldershot Resources has just made the first step of many with this drill program. As the company moves forward into the next stage of exploration it will be interesting for almost any mining investor to follow along. As each drill hole is drilled and mapped it starts to paint a much larger picture. We know the grade is there, it's just the volume and tonnage of that grade that this company needs to find and confirm. Who knows, maybe one day Aldershot may become the new Alamos.
You can read up more on this company right here.
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