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52 www.resourceworld.com F E B R U A R Y / M A R C H 2 0 1 8 MINING PROVIDENCE GOLD MINES INC. [PHD- TSXV] recently completed a soil sampling program at its 100%-optioned Providence gold property that has outlined several gold-in-soil anomalies. The project is located in the eastern Mother Lode district near the town of Tuolumne, approximately 130 miles east of San Francisco, California. The Providence property includes a group of four past-producing mines, including the Providence, Consuelo, Goodenough and Bonita quartz mines, all on patented claims. Production was from 1897 to 1916 when an owner's dispute stopped production. The old operations only mined free gold using a stamp mill and ignored gold sulphide mineralization which provides future mining potential for the remaining free gold zones as well as all the gold-bear- ing sulphide zones. A double-compartment shaft was sunk to a depth of 1,470 feet on the dip of the vein which accessed 12 lev- els. Providence Gold Mines is planning an exploration program to define grades and tonnages. The upper levels are dry with the lower levels needing de-watering. The recent soil sampling program dis- covered that the anomalies occur along a 1,300-metre strike length between the Bonita workings located at the north end of the property and the past produc- ing Providence Gold Mine located to the south. Company geologists are of the view that these surface anomalies potentially represent existing and new gold-bearing shoots. Within the trend, soil samples returned values of up to 7.33 g/t gold that are coincident with the trace of the vein as determined by recently completed surface and underground mapping. The 451 surface soil sample highlights include 39 grading 15-24 parts per billion (ppb) gold, 18 grading 25-49 ppb gold, 9 grading 50-99 ppb gold, 14 grading 100- 999 ppb gold and 4 grading 1,000 ppb or 1 g/t gold. A total of 84 of the samples were deemed anomalous. Maximum values are as follows: 7,334 ppb gold in the McCarthy Shaft Area; 2,456 ppb gold McCarthy Shaft area; 1,852 ppb gold in the Providence Shaft Area; and 1,776 ppb gold in the Goldwin area. John Kowalchuk, P.Geo., stated, "We are very encouraged with these significant gold-in-soil anomalies as they are located along strike between known mineralized shoots and can be easily accessed by dia- mond drilling." In November 2017, Providence Gold reported a number of encouraging assays from chip samples collected in the old underground workings in the South Shoot on the 600-foot level that included 16.33 g/t gold over 1.80 metres, 4.16 g/t over 1.0 metre, 4.41 g/t over 2.80 metres, 9.74 g/t over 0.80 metres and 7.05 g/t gold over 0.60 metres. The samples verify the histor- ical results for the Providence Mine South Shoot located about 70 metres south of the North Shoot. Some of the better chip samples from the 600 level North Shoot included 8.60 g/t gold over 1.0 metre, 19.58 g/t gold over 1.0 metre and 45.64 g/t gold over 1.3 metres. The company is now sourcing drill contractors for its planned drill program. The Providence Gold Mines properties are accessible by a combination of paved and gravel roads. The two main areas, known as the Providence and Consuelo, are on the company's patented lands. According to a 1931 newspaper clip- ping, production from the Providence Mine between 1901-1912 yielded ore averaging US $18 per ton (gold at US $20/ounce) to a total of $3,000,000. These historical results have not been verified by the company and therefore cannot be relied upon. Ronald Coombes, President and CEO, and his team believe that past produc- tion removed only a portion of the deposit which is recorded as having ceased during profitable mining operations in 1916. The Providence vein system comprises a series of parallel, steeply-dipping, gold- bearing, quartz veins emplaced in deformed and metamorphosed layered rocks of the Palaeozoic Calaveras Complex. The veins contain several steeply-plunging chutes of higher grade mineralization, at least three of which were the target of underground min- ing activity that still remain viable targets for renewed exploration. n Providence Gold discovers potential mineralized shoots at old California gold mine by Ellsworth Dickson Setting up one of the many Aero Geometrics 3D LiDAR survey stations at the old, past-producing Providence gold mines near Tuolumne, California. See opposite page for a typical 3D LiDAR image of the underground rocks and various geological structures. Photo courtesy Providence Gold Mines Inc.