Drilling around last year's discovery hole at the Keats zone within New Found Gold's (TSXV: NFG; US-OTC: NFGFF) wholly owned Queensway gold project in Newfoundland has returned long intervals of high-grade gold.
The explorer has released results of four holes, drilled as part of a 10-metre step-out pattern around discovery hole 19-01, which hit 19 metres of 92.9 grams gold per tonne starting at 96 metres. This drilling was aimed at establishing the geometry and orientation of the veins that make up the high-grade gold system.
Drill highlights include 8 metres of 24.1 grams gold from 92 metres, which was drilled 10 metres to the north and above last year's discovery intercept. An additional hole, also drilled 10 metres north of 19-01, hit 19 metres of 31.2 grams gold from 90 metres.
Drilling north of, and below the discovery hole, returned 41 metres of 22.3 grams gold starting at 83 metres; and 18 metres of 15.8 grams gold from 102 metres.
Greg Matheson, New Found Gold's chief operating officer, noted how these initial step-out results suggest good continuity of the gold mineralization.
"We are very pleased that our initial step-out drilling at Keats is demonstrating strong continuity of veining and high-grade gold mineralization," he said in a statement. "Our 10-metre step-out pattern around hole NFGC-19-01 is providing valuable information about the orientation of veining and grade distribution."
Matheson added that the historic work, combined with the more recent drilling at Keats, has traced gold mineralization over at least 300 metres of strike, and the zone remains open. New Found Gold plans to continue step-out drilling in the area.
Additional assays are pending, which include 50-metre step-outs to drill hole 19-01.
A 100,000-metre diamond drill program is ongoing at the 1,500-sq.-km project, which covers a 105-km-long section of the Dog Bay suture, associated with several large-scale gold systems.
Queensway is 15 km west of Gander in the northeastern part of the island of Newfoundland in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.