Osisko Development (NYSE: ODV, TSXV: ODV) announced results from its 2024 initial exploration and historic data validation efforts for its Quesnel River mine prospect within its Cariboo gold project. The project is in central British Columbia.
Osisko highlighted its most significant assay result: Intercepts of 13.61 g/t gold over 4.15 metres at the project.
Chris Lodder, company president, stated, “Today’s infill results are promising and reinforce the prospectivity of the historic QR mine area, as well as several surrounding skarn and intrusion related gold targets. This limited drill program aimed to validate historical exploration data from work conducted by previous owners between the 1970s and 2000s, which lacked preserved drill core. A proposed follow-up targeted geophysical survey—combined with the existing data—will guide the next phase of exploration and target generation on the property.”
The gold development company mentioned highlights from its 2024 exploration program at the project. To start, the company is reviewing a historical drill database comprising over 130,000 metres of drilling in more than 1,300 drill holes. The gold producer’s extensive dataset is the product of exploration work from previous owners between the late 1970’s and 2000’s. That exploration work focused on several distinct localized zones of gold skarns mineralization. Some of that data came from data from mining operations by previous owners. However, several drilling campaigns lack the necessary validation documentation by way of drill core data.
Osisko Development designed its 2024 drill campaign as an initial program to target, validate, and confirm areas of mineralization in the historic drill data. The company said given the localized nature of drilling in the past, there remains the possibility of undiscovered gold rich zones with the QR mine prospect.
The QR mine prospect property is located approximately 58 km southeast from the city of Quesnel, accessible year-round, and approximately 111 km from the Cariboo gold project. It was previously operated by Kinross Gold from 1994 to 1998. Due to the low gold price at the time, open pit and underground mining ceased in 1998. The previous producer collectively produced a total of 118,004 ounces of gold (1.06 million tons at 4.1 g/t gold) at the operations over their mine life. In subsequent years, Cross Lake Minerals acquired the property in 2004 and conducted small scale open pit and underground operations. More information is posted on www.OsiskoDev.com.
