31 May 2018
Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. is pleased to announce the results of 2018 drill target generation from its 2017 high-resolution airborne gravity gradiometry survey over the Seal Zinc deposit and prospect. The 2017 survey covered 15,327 line kilometres (km) over the >1,000,000 acre (4,145 km2) Aston Bay Property in the Polaris mining district, Somerset Island, Nunavut. Several significant untested anomalies were identified adjacent to and along strike from the Seal deposit, the subject of this release, and target refinement is ongoing in advance of the planned summer 2018 drill campaign. Significant gravity anomalies spatially associated with high-grade copper mineralization were also identified in the vicinity of the Storm Copper prospect and along a mineralized trend extending 80 km to the south (see November 30, 2017 press release). Analyses of these copper-related anomalies and drill hole target generation will be the subject of an upcoming future press release.
The Seal Zinc deposit occurs within 200 metres (m) of tidewater and contains a current Inferred Mineral Resource of 1.01 Mt at a grade of 10.24 % zinc (Zn) and 46.5 grams per tonne (g/t) silver (Ag). The deposit is open along strike and at depth. Seal is characterized by stratiform massive and replacive sphalerite-pyrite mineralization within the Lower Ship Point Formation and an associated locally mineralized pseudobreccia in the underlying Turner Cliffs Formation. The style of mineralization and the presence of pseudobreccia are both comparable to the Polaris Mine to the north, which Cominco Ltd. operated for 21 years producing 21 million tonnes ore grading 13.4 % Zn. Although comparable, these features do not necessarily imply that a deposit of the same scale is present at Seal.
The Polaris deposit does not outcrop, and was discovered by Cominco’s drilling of a gravity anomaly north and down-dip of three relatively small zinc showings. Aston Bay has modeled publicly available Polaris gravity data to allow predictive estimation of the scale and magnitude of potential gravity anomalies that may be spatially associated with analogous mineralized bodies at varying depths and sizes.