New Afton

The New Afton deposit comprises part of a larger copper-gold porphyry district situated within the prolific Quesnel Trough island-arc terrane, host to many of British Columbia’s major copper and gold districts. Pre-mineral country rocks consist of intermediate to mafic volcanic country rocks belonging to the Triassic Nicola Formation. Regional scale fault zones act as the principal controls to the emplacement of the batholithic rocks and related porphyry-style mineralization in the area. The bulk of the New Afton deposit occurs as a tabular, nearly vertical, southwest plunging body measuring at least 1.4 kilometres along strike by approximately 100 metres wide, with a down-plunge extent of over 1.5 kilometres. The deposit remains open to the west and at depth.

Mineralization is characterized by copper sulphide veinlets and disseminations localized at brecciated margins between altered porphyry intrusives and Nicola volcanic country rocks. Copper occurs primarily as chalcopyrite and lesser bornite, with secondary chalcocite and native copper occurring in the upper nearer-surface parts of the deposit. Gold occurs as sub-micron grains associated with copper sulphides.

Since the commencement of commercial production in 1977, the New Afton mine has produced more than 800,000 ounces of gold and 850 million pounds of copper from both open pit and underground operations.

Since the start of the current underground block cave operation in July 2012, exploration at New Afton focused on extending the mineral resource below the current B-Zone block cave reserve. This undertaking has resulted in the addition of the C-Zone and SLC-Zone resources as well as the definition of new mineralized areas directly below the SLC-Zone and parallel to the east of the C-Zone called Upper and Lower East Extension. The C-Zone resource remains open to further growth down plunge, where a new area has been defined as D-Zone. The Company plans to start an underground drilling program from the base of the planned C-Zone Block Cave in 2022 that will focus on exploring for the potential continuity of the D-Zone and East Extension down plunge mineralization.

In October 2020, the Company started a reconnaissance exploration drilling program at the prospective Cherry Creek trend area, located within three kilometres of the New Afton mill. The program was designed to test several targets within areas of coincident geochemical soil anomalies, IP and magnetic geophysical anomalies, and evidence of vein style mineralization and surface alteration.Results to date in one of the targets (Silica Hill) shows shallow intercepts of narrow gold and silver mineralization within a preliminary geology model and alteration domains show characteristics of mineralization and alteration patterns that halo gold-copper mineralized porphyry systems similar to New Afton deposit. Follow up drilling program has been designed to explore for deep targets on key areas to assess the potential for porphyry style mineralization.

Cherry Creek Trend - Drill holes location and simplified geological interpretation 

In March 2021, an underground drilling program commenced to test three targets generated within the New Afton deposit footprint based on an AI (Artificial Intelligence) study. The program is targeting additional mineralization within the New Afton deposit and is expected to be completed in August 2021.

 
New Afton deposit - AI (Artificial Intelligence) targets

Additionally, New Gold continues its exploration efforts to define new prospective targets on the broader Company’s landholdings aimed to discovery of additional mineralization and potentially extend the life of the mine.