Assays hint at size, depth of Onyx Gold’s Argus system

Drill results at Onyx Gold’s (TSXV: ONYX; US-OTC: ONXGF) Munro-Croesus project have extended gold mineralization at the Argus North and Main targets and identified a new potentially gold-bearing zone.

Highlight hole MC26-274A, from Argus North, cut 28.1 metres grading 3.5 grams gold per tonne from 380 metres depth, including 17.8 metres at 5.3 grams gold, Onyx reported Thursday. At Argus Main, hole MC26-324 returned 93 metres at 1 gram gold from 316 metres downhole, including 20 metres grading 2 grams gold and 6 metres at 3 grams gold. Munro-Croesus is 75 km east of Timmins and about 540 km north of Toronto.

"Today's results demonstrate that both Argus North and Argus Main continue to grow with depth while maintaining the broad, continuous style of mineralization that has become characteristic of the system,” Onyx Gold CEO Brock Colterjohn said in a release. “We believe we are still in the early stages of defining the full scale of the Argus gold system."

Past-producing mine

The latest results come as Onyx seeks to define a larger gold system beyond Argus Main and North that could support an initial resource, which the company has yet to release despite two years of consistent drilling. The site’s past-producing Croesus mine averaged 93.5 grams gold during operations between 1908 and 1936.

Other highlights from Argus North include 19 metres at 3.5 grams gold from 409 metres depth in hole MC26-271, including 6.6 metres grading 8.3 grams gold.

That target has been intersected deeper than 700 metres vertically and remains open, Onyx said. Drilling has continued to encounter the same broad style of altered and mineralized volcanic rocks discovered in the shallower part of the target. 

110,000-metre program

Onyx has drilled 75,000 metres so far at Munro-Croesus across 188 holes, what it called one of the largest fully-funded gold exploration programs in the Abitibi region. It plans another 35,000 metres this year, aimed at expanding the Argus gold system which is characterized by steeply plunging, high-grade gold zones and disseminated targets of low- to moderate-grade gold zones.

Shares of Onyx fell almost 1% to $1.50 apiece on Thursday morning in Toronto, for a market capitalization of about $129.8 million (US$93 million). The stock has traded in a 12-month range of $1.01 to $2.60.