Categories: Precious Metals
Topics: General Precious Metals

Ethos Gold (TSX-V: ECC) CEO Craig Roberts on Strong, Initial Deep Drilling Results at Iron Point in Nevada & Upcoming 6,000-Meter Drill Program at the Ligneris Project in Quebec

Gerardo Del Real: This is Gerardo Del Real with Resource Stock Digest. Joining me today is the President and CEO of Ethos Gold (TSX-V: ECC)(OTC: ETHOF), Mr. Craig Roberts. Craig, how are you this morning?

Craig Roberts: I'm good, Gerardo. How are you doing?

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent, excellent. Thank you for coming on. Let's get right to it. We hit some more smoke, pretty thick smoke, no fire at Iron Point in Nevada. I hate using the term. I joked with you off air about the term. It's a geologic or a technical success, but this really is that.

You announced results from your Phase 1 drill program at Iron Point. Can we talk about what you found, what you didn't find, and what's next?

Craig Roberts: Sure. Happy to, Gerardo. Just to maybe do a little bit of a review of the project and some of the history and then the results in that context. Iron Point is a location in Nevada that's had quite a few historic drill campaigns by majors and other companies.

It's pretty much exclusively been targeted down to about 300 meters of depth. It was drilled quite a lot in the '80s and '90s when they were looking primarily for open pit type targets, and so they didn't in those days go deeper. It's well known that Iron Point has one of the largest mercury-antimony-arsenic anomalies in Nevada, which are elements that are often associated with gold deposits.

In our previous press release, we outlined those anomalies specifically along a range-front fault. So it's always been viewed as very prospective area, but nobody ever drilled deep to look for lower plate rocks and for potential deeper Carlin-type gold mineralization.

Our drill program that we just completed did exactly that. The first hole we drilled, hole EG-2, we drilled down to just over 2,300 feet. We got went through the Roberts Mountain Thrust and got into lower plate rocks around 1,200 feet.

We were quite excited, in fact, by the geology that we found below the Roberts Mountain Thrust there. More importantly, some of the geologists involved in our program that spend a lot of their careers in Nevada were very positive on and excited by the geology that we saw in the lower plate there. Very strong alteration, decalcification, sooty sulfides, silicification – clear evidence of strong folding and intervals of anomalous gold. Really we're actually quite excited by that.

I've learned quite a lot, I have to say, about these Carlin-type systems through this program. One of the things I've learned at least is that often these programs do start with exactly what we've got, with clearly anomalous gold in that kind of environment. Then it becomes an exercise of vectoring into a potential deposit, potential economic grades and deposit.

Quinton Hennigh, who's our advisor on this project, was involved in a discovery exactly like that near Carlin, Nevada where he had some initial holes that looked extremely exciting but came back with relatively low-grade anomalous gold. Then he stepped out on those and got holes back that looked less interesting, but had some very high-grade intervals and long intervals of gold and became a very interesting discovery.

Gerardo Del Real: Just to be clear really quick, Craig, the reason you're excited is because the mineral package is indicative and supportive of obviously what you're looking for, which is broad intervals of good economic mineralization. Right? The mineral package is correct for what you're targeting.

Craig Roberts: Yeah, exactly. We've gone deep there. We've found the right environment with anomalous gold and now the next step for us is to do some very detailed sort of three-dimensional modeling analysis and look at vectoring towards high-grade gold. That's our strategy, our next step on this project.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. Now I understand that you have earned into the minimum expenditure of $1 million in the first year. Is that accurate?

Craig Roberts: That is correct. Yeah, correct.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. What comes next as far as Iron Point goes? Obviously at La Purisima, you did a very inexpensive program to test the target there. It didn't have what you were looking for, cut your losses, got out of there. This is a little different because you actually are enthusiastic about what you've found. What's the next step here with Iron Point?

Craig Roberts: Yeah, we are. Absolutely. The next step with Iron Point is to take the new drill results that we have, a lot of historic data including drilling and other sampling, mapping, and also Victory Metals has recently completed a very extensive drill program in the upper plate there, resource drilling for vanadium. We can sample those holes for gold and other indicator elements.

We're going to do that and we're going to incorporate all of that information with consultants into a three-dimensional model and an analysis to give us a vector towards where we would expect the higher grade gold to be. So we're going to do that and then we will work out a next phase of drilling and drill targeting based on that work.

Gerardo Del Real: Excellent. It's important to note that you're earning 50% from Victory Metals as a result of the earn-in, the expenditure of the million dollars in the first year. Right?

Craig Roberts: That is correct. And just to make the point on that agreement as well is that all our money goes into the ground so we have no cash or share payments to Victory. So all of the money and our learning goes into the ground, yeah.

Gerardo Del Real: I said last time you and I spoke, Craig, that the 4th quarter was going to be a very busy one. Let's be clear and let's be straightforward, you're out there looking for a discovery in a good jurisdiction. And number three is up next, that's in Quebec. Can we speak to that and then when that drilling is going to get started?

Craig Roberts: Yeah. In Quebec, the Ligneris Project, we are gearing up right now to start drilling at the end of October. We've got a 6,000-meter drill program defined there. And just very briefly, that target is one that also has had quite a bit of historic drilling, approximately 200 holes down to about 300 meters.

That drilling has actually intercepted some quite significant intersections, including 10.6 meters of 13.5 grams gold was the best one. But there are quite a number of other significant gold intercepts in that first 300 meters.

It has been established now that the deposit model there is a gold-rich, VMS-style deposit, which is the same as Agnico's big LaRonde mine. There are a few other examples. The Nomattal mine in Quebec, as well, is the same kind of model.

So it is a very potentially very large target. It was always felt that it needed modern geophysics. We've now done that. We've done airborne VTEM and we've recently completed a ground-based gradient IP survey and that is showing chargeability and other anomalies that line up very well with some of the historic high-grade gold intercepts.

We've used a consultant in Quebec, InnovExplo, to do quite a detailed three-dimensional model to target the 6,000-meter drill program we're about to start. We're very excited by the potential to drill deeper underneath some of these historic intercepts into the chargeability and other geophysical anomalies and go after this kind of LaRonde target on that project. Yeah, that's our next focus and we're very excited by it.

Gerardo Del Real: And that program commences in late this month. Is that accurate?

Craig Roberts: Yeah, right at the end of October. We'll really be geared up in November, December. We'll take a break for Christmas and then the intention is to restart in mid-February as well.

Gerardo Del Real: Well, if we continue with the supportive gold price, which I got to tell you has been really resilient. Every time it pulls back, we climb right back to that $1,500 level. And if there is a discovery to be made there, it could be significant for the company because you have the right to earn up to 70% on this project. Right, Craig?

Craig Roberts: That is correct, yeah. I have to as well just make the point of what a fantastic jurisdiction Quebec is to work in. Our project's very accessible. But in terms of the general support for mining there, the cost of drilling, the expertise of the people and et cetera, I think most people will agree it's one of the best jurisdictions in the world to work in from a mining point of view. And so now our project is actually accessible and very well located. That's certainly an important point on that project.

Gerardo Del Real: Craig, thank you so much for coming on on such short notice. I appreciate the update and look forward to news obviously out of Quebec in the next coming months.

Craig Roberts: Thanks, Gerardo. And I look forward to chatting to you again. Hopefully not too far down the road.

Gerardo Del Real: Fantastic. Appreciate it.

Craig Roberts: Thank you.