VANCOUVER, Britsh Columbia--(BUSINESS WIRE)--New Found Gold Corp. (“New Found” or the “Company”) (TSX-V: NFG, NYSE-A: NFGC) is pleased to announce the results from its inaugural 7,250m, 33 diamond drill hole program at Queensway South (“QWS”) that commenced in August 2022 and was designed to test early-stage exploration targets along an 18.5km long stretch of the Appleton Fault Zone (“AFZ”) approximately 50km south of the Keats Zone (Figure 2). Queensway South is a contiguous portion of New Found’s 100%-owned Queensway project and covers roughly 65km of strike extension on the regional Appleton and JBP Fault Zones across 1320km2 of the Queensway project’s total area of 1,662km2. QWS is easily accessed via the Trans-Canada Highway and a network of forestry roads.

Highlights:

• 27 of 33 drill holes hit significant gold mineralization while 10 drill holes contained visible gold across four target areas (Figures 1 and 3), as summarized in Table 2. Several new discoveries were made along an 18.5km corridor that was prioritized due to the amount of gold found in the surficial environment; specific targets tested occur on both sides of the AFZ and exhibit a combination of favourable characteristics including elevated Au-in-grab, till and soil samples.
• At Pauls Pond, an area covering a high concentration of gold anomalies on both sides of the AFZ, seventeen drillholes were completed leading to three new discoveries: “Astronaut”, “Nova” and “Nebula” as well as the expansion of the historic “Goose” zone (Figures 3 and 4).
• Astronaut and Nova are parallel structures located west of the AFZ that have been traced over 1,600m and 250m of strike length, respectively. At Astronaut and Nova, eight out of nine holes drilled contained visible gold, including highlight interval of 19.0 g/t Au over 3.15m in NFGC-QS-22-20. The Company believes these two zones connect through to the Goose zone, which, if confirmed, would expand this mineralized corridor to 2.5km in strike length.
• Nebula, the third discovery in the Pauls Pond area, is located on the east side of the AFZ and drill testing of a prominent Au-in-soil anomaly with two holes identified significant mineralization that is associated with a near-surface shear zone that returned an initial highlight result of 4.92 g/t Au over 3.05m in NFGC-QS-22-25 (Figure 4).
• On the east side of the AFZ drill testing of two trenched Au-in soil and till anomalies led to two new discoveries, “Devils Pond” and “Devils Pond South”. These zones are located 12km apart and all drillholes at both targets intersected broad domains of highly anomalous gold including highlight intervals of 0.47 g/t Au over 8.00m and 0.37 g/t Au over 28.00m in NFGC-QS-22-15 at Devils Pond and 1.01 g/t Au over 8.80m in NFGC-QS-22-30 at Devils Pond South (Figure 3).

Greg Matheson, COO of New Found, stated: “Results from our inaugural drill program at Queensway South exceeded our expectations. The majority of target areas tested led to new discoveries – discoveries generated by New Found applying prospecting, soil and till sampling, mapping, trenching and interpretation of geophysics across the vast claim blocks of QWS. With only a handful of targets tested, the success of this small program demonstrates the potential of this region and supports our thesis that the Queensway Project is a district-scale host to gold mineralization. There is a lot of work to be done in advancing these new discoveries and continuing to test new targets generated along the AFZ’s 65km+ of largely unexplored strike that falls on the QWS Project. The 2023 summer regional exploration program will consist of a follow-up drill program of approximately 10,000m along with boots-on-the-ground field work to continue to identify new targets and expand on these new discoveries.”

Additional Details:

Astronaut and Nova

• Mineralization is constrained to dioritic-gabbroic dykes that have intruded a package of siltstone immediately west of the AFZ and mineralization is characterized by quartz veins often containing tourmaline, arsenopyrite, chalcopyrite, pyrrhotite and pyrite, a similar mineralization style as seen at the Valentine Lake deposit located 150km to the west (Figure 1).

Nebula

• Associated with a substantial Au-in-soil anomaly, this target is characterized by a shear zone located immediately east of the inferred projection of the AFZ containing quartz veins with tourmaline and arsenopyrite hosted by siltstone interbedded with greywacke, the same host Davidsville Group stratigraphy to the Queensway North (“QWN”) discoveries such as Keats, Keats West, Iceberg, Golden Joint and Lotto.

Devils Pond

• Identified using soils and is defined by a +1 g/t Au-in-soil anomaly. Subsequent trenching revealed a shear zone with quartz veining and strong arsenopyrite mineralization hosted by a greywacke located in a similar stratigraphic position to Devils Pond South and several of the QWN AFZ discoveries.

Devils Pond South

• An Au-in-till anomaly that was subsequently trenched to reveal high concentrations of arsenopyrite mineralization in a greywacke located in a similar stratigraphic position to several of the discoveries made along the QWN segment of the AFZ and at Devils Pond.

Eastern Pond

• The Eastern Pond target is defined by high-grade Au-in-grab samples, largely float, and Au-in-tills which was subsequently trenched revealing Au-anomalous quartz veins hosted in an interbedded black siltstone domain. One follow-up hole was completed and intersected one visible gold occurrence and anomalous gold. Additional work is scheduled for this region and the target is locally analogous to the gold discoveries made along the west side of the AFZ at QWN such as Keats West.

Aztec

• Aztec is an epithermal target and is defined by a large area of sinter and is associated with a significant fault zone and hydrothermal breccia containing gold that is exposed in a trench and historical drill core. Drilling was designed to test below the sinter and down-dip within the fault-zone and breccia domain. One hole was completed at Aztec and successfully intersected the main fault zone but returned weekly anomalous gold values. South of the Aztec epithermal target, seven drill holes were completed targeting an outcrop exposure containing high-grade gold-bearing quartz veins. Similar to the Astronaut, Nova and Goose zones, gold mineralization was constrained to gabbro dykes that had intruded the local siltstone unit. Anomalous gold was intersected and included one occurrence of visible gold.

Drillhole Details