Aurizon Mines corners Rouyn-Noranda

By the middle of next year Aurizon Mines (ARZ-T, AZK-X) will have completed a feasibility study on its Joanna gold project along the Cadillac Break, 2 km northeast of Rouyn-Noranda in Quebec’s Abitibi region.

In the meantime the company’s chief executive, David Hall, is stacking up option agreements on nearby exploration properties that could become satellite deposits.

In May Aurizon signed an option agreement with Typhoon Exploration (TYP-V) to acquire a 50% interest in the Fayolle project, about 10 km north of Joanna. And today the gold producer picked up an option from Midland Exploration (MD-V) to earn a 50% interest in the junior’s Patris gold project, about 7 km to Joanna’s northeast.

“Joanna is on the Cadillac Break, Fayolle is on the Destor-Porcupine fault, and Patris is on the splay coming off the Destor-Porcupine fault,” Hall says in a telephone interview from Vancouver.

Both Fayolle and Patris fit Hall’s strategy of “low-risk entrance into additional exploration exposure, particularly in Quebec, where we’re focusing on properties with good geology that have been explored to a certain level by good technical teams and we can leverage off those things and provide capital,” he explains.

“We can use the technical teams of the owners to carry out fieldwork and exploration and where we get involved is the financing and the design of the program. We have a lot of input into the targets we want covered and the expenditures under each program.”

Patris is along the La Pause Fault, which both Midland and Aurizon believe could be the southeastern extension of the Destor-Porcupine Fault.

Aurizon can acquire 50% of Midland’s Patris project during a four-year period by spending $3 million on exploration, $600,000 of that in the first year. Aurizon must also spend $230,000 in cash including $40,000 upon signing the agreement.

After completing its earn-in, Aurizon has the option to acquire another 10% by delivering a positive pre-feasibility study within four years. Under that scenario it would make cash payments of $80,000 a year until the prefeasibility is delivered and fund exploration work including a 40,000-metre drill program.

So far Midland has completed exploration work involving line cutting and ground-based magnetic and IP surveys over 30 km. New anomalies Midland has detected are all near the La Pause Fault in both ultramafic rocks of the Malartic Group and sedimentary rocks of the Kewagama Group.

Midland believes the Patris property has “very strong potential for gold discoveries similar to deposits in the Cadillac and Malartic gold mining camps” because it covers the faulted and folded contact between  the sedimentary rocks of the Kewagama Group, and the mafic to ultramafic volcanic rocks of the Malartic Group over a strike length of more than 4 km.

“Several new folded structures were recently interpreted based on magnetic data, which represent favourable sites for the injection of porphyry intrusions and deposition of gold mineralization,” Midland states in its literature. “Many gold showings occur near this contact, namely the Gadoury showing, grading 6.3 grams gold per tonne over 0.98 metre, and the McDermott showing, that graded 8.6 grams gold over 1.2 metres.”

Patris is also 5 km southeast of Midland’s Dunn property, which has been optioned to Osisko Mining Corp. (OSK-T).

At the Fayolle project, Aurizon can earn a 50% interest subject to an underlying 2% net smelter royalty, by spending $10 million and subscribing for $2 million Typhoon shares. To earn an additional 15% Aurizon must deliver a feasibility study or spend an additional $15 million on the project.

If recent drill results are any guide, it’s very likely Aurizon will opt for the additional 15% stake.

On Dec. 16 Aurizon and Midland released a new series of drill results including 10.5 metres of 5.1 grams gold per tonne from hole FA-10-20 and 4 metres of 10.8 grams gold in hole FA-10-14. Highlights from earlier results released on Nov. 2 include 8 metres of 11.4 grams gold from hole FA-10-08.