HOPE BAY, Nunavut MIRAMAR MINING of Vancouver has begun an $18-million program at its Hope Bay gold project. The money is budgeted for 38,000 metres of diamond drilling, 5,000 metres of reverse circulation drilling, and permit applications for the Doris North mine development. By the end of this year, Miramar hopes to complete a preliminary mining strategy.
"We continue to believe that Hope Bay's tremendous potential warrants a multi-pronged approach to the belt, encompassing the full range of activities from grassroots exploration to mine development," said president and CEO Tony Walsh. "Only through this multi-pronged approach will we be able to discover and develop the full potential of the Hope Bay belt. The development of the high grade Doris North deposit should provide the springboard for our efforts to establish Hope Bay as a long-lived, profitable resource base."
Hope Bay is the first major Archean greenstone belt to yield a new minable gold deposit in Canada since the discovery of the Hemlo deposits 22 years ago. Miramar's land includes three deposits: Boston, Doris and Madrid. Because of its high grade (23.9 g/t Au) the Doris deposit will be the site of the first mining activity. The Boston deposit (averaging 15.4 g/t Au) is the target of infill drilling. The lower-grade (10.3 g/t Au) Madrid deposit will be investigated for its potential to support an open pit development. Exploration will also evaluate known mineralized trends and search for new zones of mineralization.
Maps and diagrams of several Hope Bay structures are posted at www.miramarmining.com in both HTML and .pdf formats.
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