A recently completed drill program at the Clarence Stream gold property in southwestern New Brunswick shows that there is continuity between the AD and MW zones, confirming suspicions that they are connected at depth and suggesting good potential for additional ounces.
— 7.5 metres grading 5.15 grams gold per tonne, beginning 61 metres from surface in hole 74;
— 1 metre grading 16.6 grams at a depth of 70 metres in vertically drilled hole 76;
— 4 metres of 10.8 grams at 46.5 metres down-hole in hole 79, which was drilled at an angle of -45; and
— 6 metres of 8.44 grams starting at 57.9 metres in -45 angle hole 81.
“The most significant development yielded by the drilling program was that we demonstrated that the AD and MW zones are the same zone and that the gold-bearing structure occurs over a much larger area than previously thought,” says Freewest President Mackenzie (Mac) Watson. This auriferous structure is a sericitized, cataclastic deformation zone containing quartz veining and stockwork. It is believed to be related to regional-scale thrust faulting.
Watson adds: “We have strong geological evidence that suggests that this same flat-lying, shallow structure is regional in scale and also controls mineralization at both the 93 and Murphy zones in the Anomaly A area, further enhancing our potential for size.”
Earlier this year, Freewest commissioned Roscoe, Postle Associates to conduct an independent preliminary scoping study and determine the commercial potential of the Clarence Stream property. The study concluded that by utilizing the nearby, former-producing Mount Pleasant mill, which includes a fully permitted tailings pond, there is potential for a commercial operation if the existing 214,000-oz. resource can be expanded two-to-three-fold at present grades. The study incorporates associated antimony content as an important byproduct credit.
“If we can attain our mineral resource target of four-hundred thousand ounces of gold, we have an excellent chance at a mining operation, given the shallow depth of mineralization and the excellent infrastructure available to us at Clarence Stream,” says Watson.
The AD and MW zones are the most prominent of four gold occurrences found in the confines of Anomaly A, a large multi-element soil anomaly some 3 km distal to the St. George Batholith and the original discovery area where Freewest drilled off a near-surface 137,000 oz. gold in the Central zone area. Gold-bearing mineralized showings have been discovered in a 4-by-4-km area of the Clarence Stream property. “We haven’t defined the limits or the edges of the mineralization yet,” notes Hoy.
The Clarence Stream property comprises 83 sq. km of mineral claims and is 70 km southwest of Fredericton, the provincial capital. The property is readily accessible by a network of provincial roads from all points of southwestern New Brunswick. Highway 770 crosses the property, as does a major power line servicing the neighbouring village of Rollingdam and the Mount Pleasant tungsten mine facilities, less than 15 km away. Freewest optioned a 100% interest in the property from a local prospector in 1999 for $200,000 cash and 100,000 shares, to be spread over four years.
Clarence Stream is a brand new grassroots gold discovery in an area better known for its tin-tungsten orebodies. By conducting an extensive program of prospecting, soil sampling, backhoe trenching, and several rounds of drilling, Freewest’s geological team traced the source of scattered gold-bearing boulders and sub-crop to a number of mineralized zones along the northwestern fringe of the Saint George Batholith, a large 2,000-sq.-km, high-level, multi-phase granitic intrusion.
Sub-zones
Five mineralized sub-zones — West, Cox, N, Central and East — were uncovered along a 2-km strike length in northeast-striking shear zones that crosscut a Silurian volcanic metasedimentary sequence within the contact aureole of the nearby Magaguadavic phase of the Saint George Batholith. The five zones occur in steeply dipping en echelon and sheeted quartz vein systems, with associated veinlet stockwork, in sheared gabbroic and metasedimentary host rocks.
The gold mineralization has a strong arsenic and antimony relationship. Freewest completed 64 drill holes in the main discovery area in 2001.
The Central zone was tested by 26 holes over a 150-metre-long strike length and to a depth of 250 metres. A drill-indicated resource of 456,884 tonnes grading 8.74 grams per tonne (uncut) was calculated to a vertical depth of 150 metres. Although the zone seems to narrow noticeably at deeper levels, it remains open. The Central zone is on a high-strain structure that pinches and swells.
Last year, Freewest shifted its exploration efforts away from the Central area of the Clarence Stream property to Anomaly A, a gold-arsenic-antimony anomaly measuring 2.5 km long and, in places, up to 700 metres wide. Local mineralized float, some carrying visible gold and bonanza-grade values of up to 418 grams, was discovered in the area by prospecting in 2001. Backhoe trenching and an overburden drilling campaign helped Freewest zero in on the Murphy, AD, MW and 93 occurrences. A broad induced-polarization (IP) chargeability anomaly outlines the general location of these zones.
The Anomaly A showings occur in a different tectonic setting than that of the original discovery. The new discoveries are in an Ordovician-age metasedimentary sequence of polydeformed greywackes and argillites of the Kendall Mountain Formation. The mineralized zones of Anomaly A area are situated between the more highly evolved granitic Sorrel Ridge and Pleasant Ridge satellite plutons, which are about 30 million years younger than the Magaguadavic granite.
Magaguadavic granite
Provincial government geologists have ruled out the possibilty that these satellite granites are the source of the Anomaly A mineralization; rather, they suggest that the Magaguadavic granite, which underlies much of the area, is the source.
Throughout 2002 and early 2003, Freewest completed 130 holes in the Anomaly A area. The greatest density of drilling is on the AD zone, which has given Freewest the greatest encouragement with respect to grade and widths of mineralization. It consists of a strongly altered sericitic zone in folded greywacke, mudstone and argillite that dips shallowly to the north. Gold occurs in flat-lying zones of strong quartz veining, quartz flooding, and stockwork, containing locally abundant stringer and semi-massive stibnite, arsenopyrite, with local sphalerite, chalcopyrite and visible gold. The best grades are where the veins are brecciated and fractured, and there has been a re-mobilization of sulphides infilling the fractures.
Prior to the most recent round of drilling, the AD zone was tested by 69 drill holes over a 400-metre-long strike length and to a depth of 75 metres. It was found to contain an indicated resource of 575,293 tonnes grading 3.89 grams gold and 1.66% antimony, equivalent to 77,000 oz. gold and 9,262 tonnes of antimony. AD remains open in all directions.
Preliminary tests on isolated samples from the Central and AD zones show that 60% of the gold is free, 20% occurs as electrum, and 20% is tied up in antimony sulphides, says Hoy.
Two shoots
The MW zone sits 300 metres north and across-strike from the AD zone and dips to the south at 38. This zone was previously tested by 21 holes over a strike length of 500 metres and contains at least two shoots. The easterly shoot has yielded better values of:
q 5.21 grams across 11 metres starting at 18 metres from surface;
q 11.8 grams over 15.5 metres at a down-hole depth of 48 metres; and
q 6.69 grams across 6 metres at 30 metres depth.
A westerly shoot contains intercepts including 9 grams over 7 metres at a down-hole depth of 84 metres, and 15.4 grams across 10.5 metres (including 3 metres of 50.9 grams) at a depth of 53 metres.
Mineralization in the AD and MW zones, as well as 93 and Murphy, appears to occur mainly along the same F2 controlling structure that is likely related to thrust faulting. This structure has been folded coaxially by F3, accounting for the changes in the direction of the dip. “This basinal feature now offers us real potential for size, and it’s all very shallow,” says Hoy. “Our deepest hole along the keel of this basin is only 75 metres. This flat-lying structure offers us ‘blue sky’; we have the potential for substantial ounces.”
Elsewhere in the Clarence Stream area, Freewest has carried out property-wide prospecting plus geochemical till and stream-sediment sampling on the Oak Bay property, which was optioned from a consortium of prospectors and bears some similarities to the Central zone. Freewest is getting up to 12 grams gold from grab samples of float material consisting of strongly sheared gabbro, with quartz veining and a fair amount of arsenopyrite.
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