Avalon continues to reel in Big Whopper

With the benefits of newly exposed outcrop and a clearer geological understanding, Avalon Ventures (AVL-V) is preparing to carry out a bulk-sampling program and a third phase of drilling at its Separation Rapids rare metals project, north of Kenora, Ont.

Much of the central “Big Whopper” portion of the lithium-bearing pegmatite deposit has been stripped, and surface geological and structural mapping programs are under way in preparation for further exploration for zones of tantalum and cesium enrichment.

The company’s geologists have improved their understanding of the deposit’s structure since The Northern Miner visited the site in late February (T.N.M.

March 9/98). In particular, the deposit is now known to have undergone folding and refolding, to plunge steeply to the east, and to have good continuity in its down-plunge direction.

Says President Donald Bubar: “We’re seeing more direct evidence in the outcrop of the classical zonation pattern that is found at Cabot’s Tanco tantalum-lithium mine [situated across the border in Manitoba, within the same greenstone belt], and we’re also seeing zones of greisen development [an alteration process associated with tantalum concentration]. There’s a very high probability that zones of tantalum and cesium enrichment are there; we just have to look a little deeper to find them.”

Once the mapping is completed and targets are defined, Avalon will begin drilling at least 1,000 metres, beginning in the eastern end of the deposit and possibly extending west of the Big Whopper zone.

Also, the company is preparing to bulk-sample 200 tonnes from the Big Whopper for metallurgical testing. In the meantime, Lakefield Research is conducting metallurgical studies on core samples in an attempt to determine a flotation process for the deposit’s lithium-aluminosilicate mineral petalite and rubidium-bearing feldspar.

Lakefield’s work is being supplemented by a mineralogical study by Richard Taylor, a geology professor at Carleton University in Ottawa. Both studies appear to indicate that the petalite and rubidium-bearing feldspar concentrates will be valuable to the glass and ceramics industries due to their low iron content. Analyses of the petalite are yielding iron values as low as 0.03% Fe2O3, while the feldspar contains no detectable iron and up to 3% Rb2O (rubidium oxide).

Bubar notes that if 0.03% were the iron content of the final petalite product, the concentrate would be the best petalite product in the world.

He adds that the feldspar’s high rubidium content is yet more evidence of the system’s high degree of fractionation, which means tantalum and cesium will likely be enriched as well. “The numbers are showing that this is probably the most fractionated pegmatite ever documented and potentially the largest.”

In other news, Avalon has retained Toronto-based Micon International to perform a more detailed resource calculation for the Big Whopper zone and prepare a prefeasibility study.

Avalon has hired Gary Pearse to serve as project manager for the Separation Rapids project. Pearse, through Ottawa-based Equapolar Resource Consultants, prepared a preliminary market study for Avalon earlier this year. He has been granted a stock option to buy up to 100,000 Avalon shares at $1.40 each, within five years.

Avalon has recently been in talks with a representative from Corning.

However, before any advanced discussions can take place, the American glass manufacturer requires sample material, to be provided later this summer.

Bubar says the idea of quarrying peripheral petalite as a sideline building-stone business alongside larger mining operations is still on the drawing board, and that the company may take a block sample for testing later this summer.

He adds that Avalon’s grassroots Wolf Mountain platinum-palladium project, northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont., has been placed on the back burner in order to conserve cash. “Right now, the Big Whopper is our number-one priority, and we don’t want to divert any money away from that.”