EXPLORATION ’94 — NAM bullish on Great Bear potential

An aggressive $5.5-million program has resulted in the discovery of new zones of gold mineralization at the Golden Bear mine property in northwestern British Columbia.

The 35,200-hectare property, owned by North American Metals (VSE), hosts an assemblage of limestones overlain by mafic volcanics that have undergone low-grade greenschist metamorphism and at least two phases of folding. The dominant geological feature is a north-south-trending regional fault called the Ophir Break, which has been traced over 20 km. Mineralization usually occurs at the fault contact between limestone and volcanics but can also occur within the carbonate lenses.

The company’s known deposits (the Main Bear and Kodiak A, B and C), as well as its mineralized targets, are all shear-hosted gold systems associated with the Ophir Break.

One of the new zones, the Ursa, is 800 metres north of the Kodiak A open pit, which contains a minable, diluted reserve of 473,000 tonnes grading 4.6 grams gold per tonne. Heap leaching is to begin there next spring. The Ursa was outlined by prospecting, followed by geophysical and soil geochemistry surveys. Trenching has returned 8 metres of 4.2 grams, among other values, and drilling has outlined a structure which seems to plunge steeply to the north. The company believes this deposit, like Kodiak A, is amenable to heap leaching, and a second phase of drilling is scheduled for next year.

At another new target, the Grizzly zone, operators are driving a 900-metre decline to provide access for underground drilling. The structure is 400 metres below the Main Bear deposit, and one of three holes drilled from a surface program returned 15.5 metres averaging 14.4 grams.

Exploratory drilling in the area was initiated to test a theory that a second structure may exist near the Main Bear deposit. As a result, a new, gold-bearing fault structure, called the Cub, was encountered at the 500-metre point in the Grizzly decline.

The Cub will be drilled upon completion of the decline, and since both the Grizzly and Cub zones contain ore that is refractory, the 6,500 metres of drilling planned for late November will be aimed at outlining sufficient reserves to restart the 365-tonne-per-day refractory mill.