Diamond drilling on the Blue Ridge Project in central Virginia, U.S.A. Source: Aston Bay Holdings Ltd.
Aston Bay Holdings Ltd. [BAY-TSXV; ATBHF-OTCQB] shares were active Wednesday April 10 after the company said it has begun mobilizing for drilling at its Buckingham gold property in central Virginia, U.S.A., located within the same region of Virginia as the company’s recently acquired Blue Ridge Project, which is in a copper-lead-zinc-gold-silver mineralized belt,
Aston Bay is engaged in the exploration for large, high-grade, copper, zinc and precious metal deposits in Nunavut and Virginia. The company is led by CEO Thomas Ullrich. Its exploration efforts are directed by chief geologist David Broughton, an award-winning co-discoverer of the Kamoa-Kakula copper project.
Kamoa-Kakula is located the Democratic Republic of Congo and is expected to be the world’s second largest copper mine with peak annual production of more than 700,000 tonnes of copper. Kamoa-Kakula is currently being developed by Ivanhoe Mines Ltd. [IVN-TSX; IVPAF-OTC]
Through its wholly-owned subsidiary, Blue Ridge Mining Inc., Aston Bay is preparing to launch at 900-metre drill program at the Buckingham gold project by mobilizing a drill rig and related equipment at the project site.
Aston Bay shares reacted by rising 10% or $0.005 to 5.5 cents on volume of almost 4.6 million. The shares are trading in a 52-week range of $0.045 and 24.5 cents.
Don Taylor, an award-winning geologist who is acting as an advisor to Aston Bay said the high-quality Virginia dataset and projects identified at the Blue Ridge Project have highlighted a very prospective base and precious metal terrane that remains under-explored.
“Based on the early drill success within the terrane, there are high expectations for a significant discovery,” Taylor said.
On Wednesday, the company said drilling will be focused on an outcropping gold-bearing quartz vein with a strike length of over 150 metres and an associated gold-in-soil anomaly that extends for over 900 metres. “Visible gold is present at surface in quartz vein outcrop and subcrop,” the company said.
Select rock chip grab samples from the outcropping quartz vein assayed up to 701 g/t gold. The associated gold-in-soil anomaly contains values up to 0.4 g/t gold in soil.
“The drill program is designed to confirm gold mineralization in the quartz vein, test the strike extent of the gold-bearing vein and also test other quartz veins subcropping on the property,” Ullrich said.
Aside from its activities in Virginia, Aston Bay Holdings is also engaged in exploration at the Storm Project in Nunavut where the company is targeting large sediment hosted copper and/or zinc deposits that are typically found in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.
In an interview, Ullrich said he was excited by the amount of copper found on surface as well as by results of drilling in four zones of copper mineralization. That includes 110 metres grading 2.45% copper from surface at the 2750N Zone.
“You don’t come across these sorts of things very often in a career,” he said.
Ullrich says the lack of previous exploration in the area is a huge incentive for companies like Aston Bay. “That is why the opportunity is still there,” he said.