EXPLORATION ’93 — Kimberlite core draws Le Tac staking

When Jean-Jacques Martel opened the trunk of his car in downtown Montreal in July, 1992, to show core samples from Le Tac Twp. to geologist Peter Smith, the two knew they were on to something big.

Martel, president of Explorations Minieres du Nord (ME), and Smith may even have known that the event would lead to a diamond rush in the Northwest Territories.

The samples were then rushed to Ottawa for analysis by Joseph Brunet, the senior geologist of Monopros, the Canadian exploration arm of De Beers. Its curiosity piqued, Monopros returned to the Minieres du Nord site, took about 40 kg of samples and sent them to South Africa. A few months later, the news came back that they were diamondiferous. A microdiamond had been found in the core and the core itself displayed a garnet geochemistry which indicated that the kimberlite had a very strong mantle root signature.

The news triggered a rush in the eastern Abitibi region last winter, says Smith, who is also a prospector and president of Fancamp Resources (VSE) in Montreal. “Every bull’s-eye anomaly within a hundred miles was staked,” he recalls. “Everybody jumped on the bandwagon.”

He says there are hundreds of bull’s-eye anomalies in the area, stretching from the Ontario boundary eastward to Chibougamau, “and we’ll see how many more of these turn up over the next six to eight months.”

The garnet chemistry in the Minires du Nord pipe is similarto that of the Lac de Gras diamond-bearing kimberlites in the Territories. “But the jury is still out,” he cautions. “It’s too early to state the overall significance of this thing.”

Smith has been involved in exploration in the area, on and off, since 1956, when he went there as a student assistant. The James Bay hydroelectric project withdrew lakes in the area from staking for about 20 years, until the late 1980s.

But gold had been reported on the south shore of Lake Pusticamica as early as 1936, and when staking at the lake began anew, prospectors Leo-Paul Dionne and Maurice Latulippe staked about 25 claims, which were optioned by Freewest Resources (TSE).

In a joint venture, Freewest drilled holes in the lake ice in 1989 and got some high-grade intersections. “That was when my attention was really focused in there,” Smith says. “You were looking at big east-west deformation zones, one of which included the high-grade intersection which later became the Freewest deposit.”

In the fall of 1990, discovery of another east-west zone was made by prospectors Jacques Duval and Toussaint Cer in Nelligan, about 15 km to the northeast. And in the winter of 1991, Freewest made another discovery with some spectacular drill intersections within it.

“That reinforced the idea, in my mind, that these belts are highly prospective,” Smith says. “And of course, everybody knew about the presence of kimberlite dykes reported at the Bachelor Lake gold mine back in the 1950s.”

The diamond rush in the Territories began as kimberlites were discovered there. As well, Monopros had been operating out of nearby Miquelon in the 1980s, at the outlet of Lake Pusticamica, taking till samples and returning every year.

“It wasn’t that Monopros was advertising its presence up there,” Smith says, “but nothing happens in the area without everyone knowing about it. Obviously, something interested them or they wouldn’t have come back.” Smith believed there could easily be kimberlite pipes in Le Tac area and realized, in 1991, that there was a prominent magnetic bull’s-eye, smack in the middle of the Minieres du Nord property which the company had acquired in 1986.

In 1992, Smith examined a compilation map of the Minieres du Nord property. It indicated a drill hole, close to a magnetic bull’s-eye, which intersected about 250 ft. of a dark rock logged as lamproite (which is akin to kimberlite). But Smith thought there was a good chance it was a kimberlite pipe.

So in May, 1992, he alerted Martel, who sent geologist Bernard Borduas to the site the following month. Borduas found a stack of rotten wooden core boxes covered with moss — and several bags of this material were brought back to Montreal in Martel’s car trunk.

“The power of an idea will get things going,” Smith says, noting that the accent of exploration in the area had previously been for gold and base metals. “What this idea has done is generate the spending of millions of dollars in the kimberlite area,” which might otherwise not have been spent, he says.

Le Tac has great potential for both diamonds and gold, and the amount of exploration that has been done for both is very little, he notes. Smith adds that although many Canadian companies are heading off to Central America and Mexico to explore for minerals, there are still a lot of opportunities in our own backyard.

“Much exploration involves going back with new ideas,” he says. “A lot of areas require a second look. This is a clear example of the process at work.” An example of this approach is the decision by Murray Pezim’s Prime Equities (VSE) to set up a gold exploration arm in Quebec with Andr Fortier, the former president of Kerr Addison Mines (TSE).

“I find this very positive,” Smith says. “Pezim has a great capacity to raise serious money for exploration. I hope we’re looking at a bit of a turnaround in the exploration fortunes of northwestern Quebec.”

— The author is a Montreal-based freelance writer.