In a wide-ranging interview, we talked with Eclipse Gold Mining President & CEO Michael G. Allen on the new company’s formation, what makes Nevada unique and the untapped discovery potential at Hercules, the company’s flagship project. Part 2 of 3.
Q: What does historical work at Hercules tell you?
Michael: Previous work was piecemeal. The historical data on this project is a bit fractured. However, there was enough data there to present a picture that there is potentially a large gold system here. The drill data we have was incomplete but when you combine that with our initial mapping, sampling and due diligence, it outlined that there is significant potential.
What the upper end of what Hercules could be is really tough to say at this point. That’s what we’re here to find out. We have four identified main targets. The scale of them is between 750 metres to a kilometre and a half long and 200 to 400 metres wide. So, in aggregate you’re talking about a footprint that is conservatively 2.5 kilometres long and 300 metres wide. In terms of depth potential, you can walk along 200 metres of vertical on this exposed system and there is a strong likelihood of continuous mineralization.
Hercules is a low sulphidation epithermal gold system – the type deposit for the Walker Lane. We know what it is and what to look for. Hercules has all the characteristics of size and scale. We could be on the path to discovering a large deposit in Nevada.
Q: What is Eclipse doing at Hercules that wasn’t done before?
Michael: Historic work can not only be devoid of modern exploration methods and technologies, but have only focused on small, limited areas. Previous exploration at Hercules was fractionated by ownership in its past – both by number of companies and claim boundaries. Different groups have explored the northern or southern part of the property but never as a whole cohesive system.
Today, we’re not constrained by an artificial border of a claim boundary. Since acquiring Hercules, we’ve consolidated claims in the area to 85 square kilometres. We can now look at Hercules through the lens of defining an entire system. One of the first things we did was a large-scale hyperspectral satellite survey that outlined the mineralization. The hyperspec anomaly actually carries on further into areas that we’ve since staked. There is a cap layer over some of the project and previous operators thought the area was dead for mineralization. However, modern geophysics can reach through it and our work has indicated there is the potential for mineralization underneath. So, we’ve got areas to chase that were not thought to be prospective before.