EXPLORATION 1998 — Barrick to drill Eastmain project

A 4,000-metre drill program by Barrick Gold (ABX-T) will further test the Lac Elmer gold project in Quebec’s Eastmain River greenstone belt.

The major can earn a 50% interest in the project from Eastmain Resources (ER-T) by spending $1.5 million on exploration over a 4-year period.

Barrick’s work during the past two field seasons traced a gold-silver-rich pyritic tuff horizon for a length of 7 km on the property. The gold-bearing horizon is said to be geologically comparable to rocks that host mines in the Bousquet camp.

Previous drilling at Lac Elmer intersected 0.5 gram gold and 50 grams silver per tonne across 33 metres, including narrower intervals of up to 6.9 grams gold and 1,000 grams silver. Surface sampling has returned high-grade values in quartz veins within gabbro.

Geophysical surveys have identified numerous untested anomalies coincident with the pyritic tuff horizon. Barrick’s 1998 program will test between 15 and 20 of these targets.

Eastmain has other projects in the Eastmain River greenstone belt, including the Reservoir property, where drilling last fall intersected massive sulphides grading 8.1 grams gold, 23.5 grams silver and 4.21% copper across 1 metre, at at depth of 177 metres.

Surface stripping in this area uncovered a showing that measures 20 metres long by 1 metre wide. Five samples averaged 4.53 gram gold, 27.4 grams silver and 4.86% copper. Several other targets of this type were outlined at Reservoir last fall.

Eastmain recently broadened its exploration efforts to include base metal projects in several Canadian mining camps. This was achieved earlier this year when the company acquired a large portfolio of gold and base metal properties from BHP Minerals Canada, a subsidiary of Broken Hill Proprietary (bhp-n), in exchange for a 3% net smelter return royalty and 1.5 million share purchase warrants.

The portfolio includes ground covering potential base metal horizons in the mining camps of Bathurst, N.B., and Matagami, Que. The Bathurst group includes several volcanogenic massive sulphide projects, including a large block of claims near the producing Caribou mine, and the Railroad prospect, situated on an interpreted extension of the Brunswick mine horizon. BHP’s previous drilling at Railroad returned a 4.7-metre interval containing 10% combined base metals. The BHP portfolio acquired by Eastmain includes ground in Quebec’s Abitibi district.