Hickey’s Pond Paradise Gold Project

Hickey’s Pond is a gold showing within the Burin Gold Project, a Neoproterozoic high-sulphidation gold system located on the Burin Peninsula, Newfoundland. It is host to a folded, zoned alteration system exposed over 250 m with newly demonstrated significant grades and widths. The zone is located within a large north-east trending >10 km alteration system that has received limited historical exploration. Hickey’s Pond is the only prospect to have been drill-tested in the district, and only with 8 holes (1983 & 1990) over a few hundred metres of strike length.

In April 2018, Bonavista Resources staked 356 km2 and optioned 20 km2 to become a controlling entity on the Burin Peninsula. The company owns a large landholding totaling 636 claims (15,900 ha), 70 claims of which are under option from a local prospector. Bonavista has an option to acquire 100% subject to NSR and cash payment of $100,000.

In follow up of historical grab sampling that returned up to 58 g/t Au. Bonavista sawed 52 linear metres of 1 m channel samples; large volume samples (~HQ core equivalent) and discovered high-grade mineralisation over significant widths (20.0 m at 9.34 g/t Au in channels).

A ‘proof-of-concept’ 75 m diamond drill hole was drilled in late February and early March 2020. 52 m of 0.68 g/t Au mineralisation was intersected from 16.00 to 68.00 m downhole, with best sub-intervals of 10.19 m at 1.63 g/t Au and 4.64 m of 1.5 g/t Au.

A 1,000 m program was started in early September 2020 to discover and delineate the mineralised alteration system from surface to over 250 m. This program is part of a larger ~5,000 m methodical grid-based drill pattern designed to test the bulk of the chargeability anomaly interpreted as representing alteration associated with mineralisation.

• 52 linear metres of 1 m channel samples; large volume samples (~HQ core equivalent)
• All samples assayed by metallic screen fire assay for Au; four-acid ICP-MS for multi-element geochemistry
• HP-CH-02 intersected 7.0 m of Au-Cu breccia, grading 19.75 g/t Au and 3.68% Cu
• Au is correlated with Ag, Bi, Sb, Se & Te

• Objective: image the subsurface distribution of silica-alunite-pyrite alteration; show along-strike potential of system under the pond and beyond
• Common-pole 3D IP-resistivity grid configuration (~90 electrode readings for each current injection)
• Data deliverables include polepole, pole-dipole, and combined dataset inversions, self-potential maps, and a detailed inversion around Hickey’s Pond showing

Horizontal slice (~50 m depth)

• Strong chargeability features consistent with geological controls
• Complex resistivity distribution appears to map faults, shear zone, and low conductivity zone

Horizontal slice (~150 m depth)

• Chargeable volume continues to depth – strong feature
• Large low resistivity zone in shear zone and opening to NE

• High resolution detailed inversion in the vicinity of the Hickey’s Pond mineralised outcrop to test the immediate volume below the mineralised channel samples
• Down-plunge projection of Au-bearing vuggy silica and Au-Cu breccia using all available structural geology data corresponds well with a pronounced protrusion in the chargeability model
• Chargeability model is consistent with Bonavista’s structural geology model and mineralisation on surface
• High confidence that mineralisation on surface can be intersected at shallow depths

Survey completed July 2019

• At Hickey’s Pond, the EM and airborne-IP both mimic the results of Bonavista’s ground-based IP resistivity survey
• The airborne survey extends the potential zone of alteration/mineralisation by several km along strike
• Two new zones to investigate identified NE of Hickey’s Pond and west of Tower
• Airborne targets over > 10 km of strike length