Barrick Gold has made two significant gold discoveries on its 100%-owned Cortez property in Nevada. The discoveries—Red Hill and Goldrush—are located 6 km southeast of Barrick’s Cortez Hills mine and 24 km southeast of its Pipeline mine. Based on the results of wide-spaced drilling, Barrick has outlined two zones of gold mineralization along a 7-km-long trend.
The discoveries are geologically similar in style to Barrick’s Cortez Hills and Goldstrike mines.The majority of the mineralization intersected to date is refractory and occurs at depths of between 150 and 500 m.
Barrick initially carried out a drill program at Red Hill to test for deeper sulphide mineralization below an area of shallow oxide mineralization. The drill program was successful in identifying favorable carbonate stratigraphy. An inferred resource of 3.5 million oz of gold from 28.8 million mt grading 0.123 oz/mt gold has been defined at Red Hill. An in-fill and extension drill program is under way at Red Hill to upgrade and expand the resource.
Following successful results at Red Hill, further drilling 2 km south along the projected strike intersected 0.894 oz/mt gold over 67.2 ft. Follow-up drilling intersected the targeted horizon along strike and confirmed the discovery of a new zone of mineralization known as Goldrush.
The mineralization in both deposits remains open in multiple directions. Barrick’s 2011 drill program for the deposits consists of a planned 264,000 ft of drilling, budgeted at $26 million.
(www.barrick.com)
