Even though the earliest gold production in Ontario came from the region west of Lake Superior, the area has long played the Abitibi’s poor relation. Still, recent exploration activity has brought renewed attention to the Shebandowan and Rainy River greenstone belts.
The highest profile of late has belonged to
Production from Ardeen started as early as the 1890s, and continued, in fits and starts, until the 1930s. The mine exploited veins in a strongly silicified shear zone, but there was little drilling along the favourable structures.
Pele’s program started in 1996 with geophysics, mapping and extensive stripping. So far the company has done about 12,000 metres of drilling, intersecting gold mineralization in five different zones. The intersections included some high-grade results, suggesting that the gold at Ardeen can be erratic. For the five zones taken together, the company’s consultants have estimated an inferred resource of 1.1 million tonnes grading 14.4 grams gold per tonne.
Pele Mountain plans to have a drill back on the property this field season, to test extensions of the known mineralization at depth.
Developments at Ardeen change the picture for the nearby Moss Lake gold deposit, held by
On that score,
Two of the three holes intersected mineralization, and all showed mineralogical alteration with secondary quartz, feldspar, muscovite and pyrite. Hole FL-1 cut a 22.9-metre length with multiple mineralized zones and an average grade of 1.1 grams gold per tonne; this included 1.7 metres grading 3.3 grams, and two 1.5-metre intersections, one grading 8.9 grams, and the other, 3.2 grams.
FL-2 intersected 25.5 metres averaging 0.38 gram gold per tonne; included in it was a 5.8-metre interval with a grade of 0.64 gram per tonne, 10.6 metres that graded 0.54 gram, and 1.7 metres that ran 1.2 grams.
Farther to the southwest,
Trenching of the showing at surface yielded a 423-kg bulk sample, which was split into 16 samples for assaying. These returned gold values between 224 and 622 grams per tonne, and an average (allowing for different sample weights) of 356 grams gold per tonne. The bulk sample’s silver content, again averaged by weight, was 850 grams per tonne.
Drill results were a little more modest, with one hole intersecting a 1.1-metre interval that graded 25.5 grams gold and 92 grams silver per tonne. Eleven other holes intersected narrow mineralized zones with grades of 2.5 grams gold and less. Still, the program has established that the mineralization is held in an east-striking shear zone with chlorite and carbonate alteration, and plainly the gold is distributed erratically.
New in the area is
Over in the Rainy River area,
The Richardson mineralization is a geochemical discovery. Nuinsco found a southwesterly trending glacial dispersion train in 1993 when it followed up on the Ontario Geological Survey’s 1987 program of reconnaissance sonic drilling, which had intersected glacial till with significant gold concentrations in southern Richardson Twp. Overburden drilling (using both reverse-circulation and sonic drills) has defined a dispersion train about 25 km long, 3 km wide at its northeastern end, and 10-km wide farther down-ice.
At the head of the train, Nuinsco recovered bedrock samples that showed gold values of 10 parts per billion (0.01 gram per tonne) and higher; and enclosed by this bedrock anomaly was the 17 Zone, a roughly east-striking structure where diamond drilling encountered intersections grading between 1 and 15 grams per tonne.
The 17 Zone is in highly altered dacites, and Nuinsco originally set up its holes to drill directly across the strike of the bedding. Starting in 1996, Nuinsco tried some diagonal holes that encountered significantly higher gold grades — generally 2.5 to 5 grams per tonne. Seemingly the structures controlling the gold mineralization are not parallel to the plane of the bedding.
Nuinsco’s plans include more core drilling on the 17 Zone and reverse-circulation drilling in the overburden up-ice, to see if there are any other bedrock sources for the gold in the dispersion train.
One-time Nuinsco partner (and now Nuinsco shareholder)
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