It said all four, widely-spaced diamond drill holes which tested a 700m x 300m area hit widespread sulphide mineralisation and alteration styles characteristic of large porphyry copper-gold systems.

A highlight was 56.35m at 0.45% copper, 0.33g/t gold and 3.44g/t silver from 224.88m.

It said the intercepts were 2.3km northeast of the Burgundy Ridge mineralisation, 250m west-northwest of historic high-grade skarn-type mineralisation drilled by the previous operator and about 2km from newly discovered analogous mineralisation on surface at the Rock Islands indicative of a potentially large porphyry system.
 
The company last month gained backing from mining identity Rob McEwen, whose Evanachan Ltd acquired $500,000 worth of the $1.5 million on offer of hard dollar units priced at 30c.

Maurizio Napoli, who was exploration vice-president then appointed CEO and president on October 1, said recently the company had completed one of the largest junior exploration programmes in the Golden Triangle this season.

"We are excited to see our initial drilling campaign result in the discovery of a porphyry copper-gold system and expansion of the Burgundy Ridge alteration system," he said yesterday.

Crystal Lake finalised an agreement in December to acquire the project from Romios Gold Resources and must spend C$8 million (US$6 million) on exploration by September 19, 2021.

It has honed its focus on Newmont Lake, moving to create spin-out Sassy Resources to take on its Nocobat project in Ontario and the Foremore claims north of Newmont Lake.

Crystal Lake had working capital of about $464,000 (US$348,000) at June 30.

Its shares were trading about 50c a year ago and hit a 52-week low intraday of 13c, before closing up 6.4% to 16.5c to capitalise it at $18.5 million (US$13.9 million).