Olympio nails hole-in-one gold in its first Canadian drill hole

Olympio Metals has nailed a geological hole-in-one, landing visible gold in quartz veining with sulphides over a 9-metre interval from 183m in its inaugural drill hole at the company’s Bousquet gold project in Quebec, Canada.

The gold occurs in a zone of dark quartz with five to seven per cent arsenopyrite-pyrite-pyrrhotite sulphide mineralisation accompanied by strong carbonate-chlorite alteration at Olympio’s Paquin gold prospect.

Olympio Metals has logged visible gold in quartz veining with sulphides over a 9m interval from 183m in its inaugural drillhole at the company’s Bousquet project in Quebec, Canada.

The drill hole also exhibits other zones of quartz veining, sulphides and alteration extending downhole to a 286m depth. The hole was drilled to 350m depth but logging has not yet been completed beyond 286m.

Olympio’s stock surged 86.05 per cent on the announcement, ending the day at $0.08 a share, with just over 2.3 million shares traded. It was the company’s highest share price since March last year.

‘We are delighted to see visible gold in our very first hole at Paquin, which has extended the gold mineralisation to the west.’

Olympio’s managing director Sean Delaney

“This is a great start and confirms for us that there is great potential in the Bousquet gold project. The Bousquet project is perfectly positioned for gold exploration success, having multi-million-ounce gold deposits to the east and west along the Cadillac Break with year-round access for drilling,” Delaney said.

Bousquet straddles the Cadillac Break, an extensive regional-scale structure associated with world-class gold mineralisation and a 110-million-ounce gold endowment.

The renowned expert in greenstone gold deposits K. Howard Poulsen described the structure as “a gold metallotect”, which extends for more than 250 kilometres from Matachewan in Ontario to Val-d’Or in Quebec.

A metallotect geological structure or feature can favour the formation of potentially economic ore deposits.

While the term can apply at any scale, it is more often used to refer to larger mineralisation controls, typically related to extensive structural or lithological controls, such as the Kalahari Copper Belt or the Iberian Pyrite Belt, a metallotect known for its massive sulphide deposits.

Some explorers hold that gold deposits on the Cadillac Break tend to form clusters along the break, although the relationship can be ambiguous.

In Olympio’s case, the Paquin, Amedee, Decoeur and Johannes prospects within its Bousquet ground lie along the Cadillac Break. It would take a brave punter to bet the prospects’ geographical positions along the break are coincidental.

Notably, outside Olympio’s Bousquet tenement, Radisson’s 1-million-ounce O’Brien gold project sits on the break, about 17km east of Paquin, while Hecla Mining’s 1.8-million-ounce Hosco gold project lies on the break about 8km west of Paquin.

Hecla’s 0.3-million-ounce Heva gold project lies a further 4km west of its Hosco operation and is also on the break.

An extensive area beyond Olympio’s Bousquet ground is surrounded by abundant gold and occasional copper and silver mines, mineralisation and anomalies.

Examples include the 2.4-million-ounce Westwood gold project and Agnico’s massive 15.8-million-ounce La Ronde project, which are 9.5km and 18km east of Paquin, respectively. They sit a short distance north of the Cadillac Break.

Previous drilling at Paquin nailed some decent gold grades, including a best hit of 9m at 16.96 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, while at the nearby Amedee prospect, 1.5m assaying 5.6g/t gold is on record.

Similarly, drilling at the Decoeur prospect jagged 16.3m at 1.09g/t gold, and at Joannes, a 1.52m intercept produced a grade of 25.81g/t gold.

These hits suggest the strong merit and high-grade potential of Olympio’s Bousquet project, ahead of the company unravelling the structural and other gold mineralisation controls and establishing some wire-frameable continuities.

Olympio will continue drilling at Paquin, with three more holes planned to test the western extension of the mineralisation. The inaugural hole with visible gold will be logged, sampled and assayed, with results expected by mid-July.

The company is planning a 10,000m diamond drilling program at Bousquet, divided into two phases. The first phase will consist of 2400m across 10 drill holes at the Paquin and nearby Decoeur prospects, while the second phase will be planned according to results from the first phase.

The Bousquet project complements Olympio’s flagship Dufay gold-copper project, which also sits on the Cadillac Break, 65km west of Bousquet.

Olympio’s drilling at Dufay is targeting depth extensions to a mineralised litho-structural gold host, possibly associated with the Cadillac Break and a big induced polarisation anomaly.

The key aspect of Bousquet is that it includes several advanced gold prospects and numerous structural and geophysical targets which have never been assessed by drilling or modern exploration. Most drill holes were put in before 1947.

Olympio Metals is an Australian mineral explorer focused on discovering and developing projects considered primarily prospective for gold and critical minerals.

In addition to Bousquet and Dufay in Quebec, the company’s project portfolio includes its Cadillac lithium project, also in Quebec, within the Cadillac-Pontiac lithium camp, less than 100km from Canada’s only operating lithium mine.

In April 2023, Olympio entered into a joint venture with Liontown Resources on its Mulline and Mulwarrie lithium projects in Western Australia’s Eastern Goldfields. The agreement allows Liontown to earn a 51 per cent interest in the projects by spending $400,000 on exploration over 12 months.

Olympio also holds ground comprising its Eurelia project in South Australia, focused on carbonatite-hosted rare earths and niobium, and its Halls Creek project in WA, which is prospective for gold and other commodities.

With first visible gold in its first hole, Olympio has made a promising start to the launch of its Bousquet drilling program. Being so close to many world-class projects, Olympio looks well-positioned to make an attention-grabbing discovery.

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