Montreal, Quebec — Beauce Gold Fields (Champs D’Or en Beauce) (TSXV: ¨BGF¨), (“BGF”): (“BGF” or the “Company”): referred to as “BGF” or the “Company,” is please to provide an update on its ongoing exploration activities at the Ditton Gold project located near Chartierville in southern Quebec. The Company has recently completed a bulk sampling program at specific locations that were previously dredged, including the SB-100 and within the Ditton quarry, the SB-101, and SB-102 sites (Press releases May 16 and June 28, 2023). Fine to nugget size placer gold were observed in the heavy mineral concentrates.
Patrick Levasseur, President and CEO of Beauce Gold Fields, stated, “This bulk sampling has increased our goal to assess the possibility of an economically viable placer gold deposit, as well as to look for signs that could lead to future discoveries of bedrock lode gold deposits.”
The 50-ton bulk sample SB-100 was excavated from unconsolidated Quaternary-type glacial till deposit from a ground-level trench located over the interpreted placer channel about 300m north of the operating Ditton (Blais) quarry. The two 50-ton bulk samples, SB-101 and SB-102, each consisting of Tertiary (oxidized and compact gravel) material, were excavated from trenches in the Ditton quarry floor.
Explolab of Val D’Or Quebec utilized a mobile placer plant equipped with a trommel and sluice to process the samples on-site. It allowed the bulked samples to be reduced to concentrates for transport to Explolab’s laboratory for finer processing. The samples were subjected to gravimetric concentration to make concentrates of heavy minerals. Laboratory technicians removed gold grains large enough to be manipulated from the heavy mineral concentrates to be weighed and measured. The concentrates were divided into batches of 500 grams and sent to MSALABS in Val D’Or for Photonassay analysis.
PhotonAssay is a non-destructive technique that can assay for non-visible gold to nuggets without destroying the sample. The non-destructive analysis allows for further testing and confirmation of visible gold content if necessary. The results of the Photonassay and the weighted gold particles per bulk sample will be combined to obtain indicative grades in grams per cubic meter (g/m3), the industry-reporting standard unit of quantity for placer gold.
Jean Bernard, B,Sc. Geo., is a qualified person, as defined by NI 43-101, who has reviewed and approved the technical information presented in this release.
A qualified person has not completed sufficient work to classify any mineral resources as defined by National Instrument (NI) 43-101; it is uncertain if future exploration will result in the delineation of mineral resources.
About The Ditton Placer Channel
The placer channel is located near the town of Chartierville, Quebec. The channel is 4 km east of the historical Mining Brook Placer gold mine and 6 km northwest of the US-New Hampshire border. It is also located 115 km south of the Company’s Beauce Gold project in St-Simon-Les-Mine.
A sampling program by the Company recovered gold from every sample taken throughout the Ditton quarry (BGF press release January 20, 2022), bringing about the discovery of the Ditton placer gold channel. Further insights to the existence of a channel were gained from the 1980s historical exploration reports of the regional geology and geophysics. It also revealed that the quarry was an excavated pit of an exposed layer of a Tertiary placer channel. Results from the company’s 2022 seismic refraction survey lines further support the existence of a paleochannel.
The channel trends southwest to northeast and is believed to open in both directions.
Comparable North American Placer Mines
Projects | Location | Year | Avg. Grade g/m3 |
Beauce Placer Mining (Beauce Gold Project) | Quebec | 1960 | 0.43 |
Multiple private large placer operations | Yukon | 2020 | 0.30 |
NovaGold (TSX-NG), Nome Gold Project | Alaska | 2011 | 0.30 |
Source: Sedar: 43-101 Report – Beauce July 4th 2018, , Author B. Violette,
Yukon Placer Mining Industry Reports 2010-2014, 2018-2020:Yukon Geological Survey
NovaGold Resources: TECHNICAL REPORT NOME PLACER PROPERTY, 2006, Norwest Corporation.
Potential for Lode Gold Discoveries
The recovered gold grains from showed delicate angular shapes suggesting little transportation. A proximal bedrock source of the placer channel could be from the eroded Eastern flank of the valley wall. The bedrock lithology holds a contact point between altered volcanic rock and schist rock. Historical surveys indicated strong magnetic lineaments favorable to hosting gold-bearing quartz lenses.
The Bella Fault line is estimated to run along strike 1 km east of the placer channel where Cache Exploration in 1985 put down 3 diamond drill holes (DDH) along Rang Dix road to test a strong shear zone. The holes intersected andesites containing numerous quartz stringers mineralized with pyrite and much tourmaline. Of interest, in the drill log for DDH number S-2 states that visible gold was noted at 240 meters (GM42843). Cache did not complete the recommended follow-up drilling to test this anomaly.
Beauce Gold Fields is a gold exploration company focused on placer to hard rock exploration in the Beauce region of Southern Quebec.