Noront Exploration and Eagle’s Nest Permitting Update

TORONTO, Aug. 06, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Noront Resources Ltd. (“Noront”) (TSX Venture: NOT) is reopening Esker Site and mobilizing its team to resume exploration activities in the Ring of Fire.

“We are initiating a late summer field program that will require 12-15 people during which we’ll employ soil sampling to explore for gold and airborne geophysical surveys to explore for nickel,” said Noront President and CEO Alan Coutts.

Esker Site was closed in early April to protect staff and the communities surrounding Noront’s operations from the spread of COVID-19. Now that the site is reopening, a rigorous back-to-work protocol is in place. It will ensure workers travelling to and from the site are symptom-free and low risk. In addition, travel will be reduced to essential staff with minimal planned flights. While at site, workers will practice social distancing and wear face masks when necessary. Regular sanitizing of common touch points will be performed daily. At no point will Noront flights will be landing in either Webequie or Marten Falls First Nation as per guidance from the local Chiefs and Councils.

Gold Exploration

Noront previously discovered anomalous gold mineralization in over 50 diamond drill holes along the Triple-J fault zone and within the Thunderbird intrusion 13 km northeast of Esker Site. Both occurrences are close to the Webequie Shear Zone (WSZ) which is believed to be prospective for greenstone hosted gold mineralization but has never been explored for gold (Figure 1).

Soil samples will be collected in a 10 km by 5 km area along the WSZ to detect areas of anomalous gold indicative of a bedrock source. Soil sampling will also be performed across a secondary structure bisecting the Thunderbird ferrogabbro intrusion where past drilling intersected auriferous quartz-sulfide veins cross-cutting magnetite-rich portions of the intrusion resulting in sulfidation of the magnetite to pyrrhotite-pyrite in a process similar to many BIF-hosted gold deposits worldwide.

Nickel Exploration

In 2019, several early stage targets believed to be prospective for nickel mineralization were also identified. From this work the Victory project, located 25 km east of Esker Site, was ranked highly and staked in early 2020. It is thought to consist of a thick sequence of ultramafic sills and/or flows intruding a sulfidic volcano-sedimentary sequence known as the Victory assemblage. The target has never been drilled tested and has had limited geophysical surveying. Geotech has been commissioned to fly a 600 line-km VTEM-plus airborne EM (electromagnetic) survey over the Victory target in late August to identify nickel-sulfide conductors.