Fathom Nickel Now Focused on Known High-Grade Chutes at Gochager
Mining Network Sep 18, 2026 26:09
Summary
Fathom Nickel's next Gochager Lake campaign targets the high-grade chutes and breccias the team already recognises rather than wider step-outs.
Phase-2 drilling stretched the mineralised system to roughly 800 m of strike, still open in every direction along strike and at depth.
The 10 September 2026 maiden MRE held back the 2026 holes on purpose, so the next update can fold in the new assays.
Crews are stripping outcrops now to lock the orientation of the high-grade veins before the next drill azimuth is set.
Borehole EM surveys are flagging strong off-hole conductors both north and south of the historic deposit at depth.
Ian Fraser's takeaways
- Top takeaway TOP: Fraser argues the geological model must shift to a two-host rock approach, recognizing nickel-copper-cobalt remobilization in the surrounding metasediments after hole 25 intersected favourable mineralization outside the intrusive.
- He advocates revising drill azimuths to a more easterly orientation to perpendicularly target north-northeast-trending high-grade chutes, which he interprets as remobilized sulphide shoots continuing to depth.
- Fraser says the company could immediately return well-mineralized intercepts at the historic deposit, but argues the priority is building enough scale to attract a larger acquirer rather than maximizing near-term retail-friendly drill hits.
- He points to off-hole BHEM conductors on both sides of the deposit and long-linear features from a 2008 airborne survey, initially written off as barren pyritic metasediments, as undrilled targets for a possible larger accumulation of massive sulphides.
- Fraser highlights the Wolf Lake soil anomaly 2.5km southwest of Gochager and an 8km geochemically favourable corridor, refined using a soil-screening method developed with Dr. Peter Lightfoot, as the main opportunities to grow the project at scale.