Cartier Iron Corporation carried out a 17-hole diamond drill program totaling 9,470.6m in winter 2022 to test significant resistivity anomalies along a major north-northeast trending structural break outlined by the Controlled Source Audio Magneto-Telluric (“CSAMT”) survey in the Central Anomaly – Big Easy Showing Area. Although assay results returned only geochemically anomalous values of silver, all the drill holes intersected wide sections of interbedded rhyolite and siltstone up to 150m thick in the lower part of the Musgravetown Group. Hydrothermal alteration is very extensive consisting primarily of silicification and phengite micas.

Hole BE-21-35, drilled in the winter 2021 program, returned 0.45 g/t Au and 9.7 g/t Ag over 34m, while Hole BE-21-36 intersected 0.62 g/t Au and 16.12 g/t Ag over 13m; but, a downdip continuation of this system was not intersected in the interbedded rhyolite and siltstone below the structural break. The shallow-gold bearing low resistivity zone where previous drilling by Cartier Iron in the Central Anomaly area was successful in confirming an extensive zone of silicification up to 200m wide with low sulphidation epithermal gold-silver mineralization appears to be separated from the area drilled in winter 2022 by a major thrust fault. Historically, gold at the Big Easy Zone has been associated with silicified sediments that contain a few percent pyrite and clay alteration products that lead to the comparatively low resistivity.

The large alteration halo defined by the pyrite chargeability can be traced for kilometres, southwards from the Big Easy Zone. Drilling at the Big Easy Zone only extended to approximately 260m in vertical depth but it returned the highest gold grades to date and a wide intersection of 0.87 g/t over 30.5m within a broader zone in BE11-03. Soil geochemical sampling in the Western Anomaly Zone in 2020 showed that although the chargeability anomalies occur at depths approaching 200m they are associated with anomalous gold values.

Chargeability anomalies with coincident Au-in-soil peaks provide compelling drill targets but surface conditions generally favor a winter drill program. These deeper targets can likely be defined by additional IP/Resistivity Surveys employing larger dipoles to increase the depth of investigation. Surface IP/Resistivity lines have been recommended north and south of the western anomaly where the chargeability response is known to be associated with gold.

Despite intense silicification, the resistivity measured at the Sleigh Pond Zone during the 2020 IP/Resistivity Survey was comparatively low where it coincides with chargeability anomalies that resemble the Big Easy Zone response approximately 10 km farther north. Soil geochemistry confirms this as a good target for drill testing. A stronger chargeability trend farther to the east provides a second drill target on the Sleigh Pond Grid.

The 2022 winter drill program has outlined a major structural boundary east of the Big Easy Zone and the Central Anomaly Zone. Property scale geophysical surveys suggest this structural boundary could extend tens of kilometres to the south. With only a small fraction of the property tested to date, Cartier Iron feels that good potential remains for a discovery within this large strike extent.