Metals 3 Corp. [MT-TSXV; XOVP-FSE] said Tuesday October 22 that it has secured the extensive physical database on the Mohave Gold Mine Project, which covers numerous historic gold mines in the Weaver mining district of Mohave County, Arizona.
M3 Metals recently gained an option to acquire a 100% interest in the property from two separate vendors. In addition to the historic gold mines, there is an approximate five-kilometre gold-in-soil and gold-in-rock geochemical anomaly that extends across the entire length of the project.
M3 said the database records cover everything from historic resource drilling to mine planning and engineering, construction reports and targeting.
The company said initial efforts to compile and digitize the historic data has resulted in the identification of significant target areas. “The most prominent area, newly termed the Dixie King, shows potential for a large-scale gold system over a two-by-two kilometre area, which overlaps with a string of historic mines commonly referred to as the Dixie Mines,” the company said.
This area has not seen any modern exploration.
M3 Metals shares rallied Tuesday, rising 4% or $0.005 to 13 cents on volume of 1.45 million. The shares are trading in a 52-week range of $0.09 and 60 cents.
The Vancouver-based junior is currently advancing the Mohave Mine Gold Project along with its Block 103 Iron Ore Project in Newfoundland and Labrador. M3 Metals is also active on copper and gold projects in Manitoba.
The Mohave project covers over five km2 of strongly altered rocks and virtually all of an historic gold district that is estimated to have produced 100,000 tons at a grade of between 0.33 and 0.5 oz/ton gold. The project consists of 148 unpatented lode claims and 13 mill sites.
There have been more than 550 historic drill holes (68,000 feet) completed on the Mohave Project. Drilling was focused on the development of historic non-compliant resources within limited areas of the project. All historic drilling was done in the northern one-fourth of the property, and most of the holes were shallow, 100-foot deep, air-track holes, many of which stopped in mineralization.
Most of the work was done by private companies in the 1980s and 1990s. Previous work included blasting of an initial bench at the Klondyke Mine, work that represented the beginning of an open pit-style operation.
The historically reported high-grade underground mines on the property have not been exploited at a commercial scale and remain in place. M3 Metals said these areas have the potential to be brought into a NI 43-101 compliant resource with an aggressive drilling program.
Little effort from the previous operators focused on testing new targets or expanding on the historical resources. Instead work focused on construction of the heap leach operation and infrastructure.
The company said regional geological models indicate that there may be depth extensions or “feeder zones” beneath the well mineralized areas on the property in-line with similar systems on the region.
M3 Metals is currently completing an inventory on all historic records while digitizing and reviewing the geological data, including the historic soil, rock and drill hole assays. Once complete, the data will be used in drill hole targeting.