TSX-listed Osisko Mining on Tuesday announced that it would start drilling what is planned to be Canada’s longest diamond drill hole, Deep Discovery 1, in May, at its wholly-owned Windfall Lake gold project, in the Abitibi greenstone belt, in Québec.
Deep Discovery 1 is designed to test the intrusion associated geological model for the Windfall deposit, following on the success of the previous deep drill holes.
The drill hole will investigate the potential depth extensions of known mineralised zones – Underdog and Triple 8 – on its path to the principal exploration target – the interpreted outer shell and centre of a possible porphyry intrusion at depths of between 3 000 m to 3 500 m from surface.
Major Drilling Group International will drill the hole using its EF-100 deep drill rig.
Once collared, it is anticipated the drill hole will take about six months to complete.
Osisko is also conducting preliminary work on the potential use of high-definition seismic techniques to identify deep gold-bearing structures and potentially directly detect certain styles of mineralisation in and around the Windfall and Lynx deposits.
HiSeis has been contracted by Osisko to evaluate the applicability of its data acquisition equipment and innovative data processing algorithms to the Windfall system.
Osisko president and CEO John Burzynski said Deep Discovery 1 presented an opportunity to test the deep porphyry intrusion model that the company believes is the driver of the Windfall system.
“The potential application of seismic techniques would be an innovative addition to the successful recent definition of new targets we achieved through the use of downhole geophysics. We remain convinced that, as we continue deep exploration, Windfall will grow to join the ranks of world-class, high-grade and long-life underground mines in the Canadian Archean.”