New phase of drilling at Duck Pond property

Seeking to expand known copper-zinc mineralization and possibly snare a Buchans lookalike, Thundermin Resources (THR-T) and joint-venture partner Queenston Mining (QMI-T) have started a further phase of drilling on their Duck Pond property in central Newfoundland.

The partners have budgeted 2,500 metres of drilling for this phase of work, which will concentrate on new targets in the North Moose Pond and South Moose Pond areas, about 10 km northeast of the main Duck Pond massive sulphide deposit, and on the Boundary deposit about halfway between Moose Pond and Duck Pond. Two other targets, discovered by an earlier airborne electromagnetic (EM) survey, are also slated for drilling.

At North Moose Pond, two large fields of boulders and frost-heaved rock show felsic and mafic volcanic rocks with intense chlorite alteration and chalcopyrite stringers — generally favourable signs for massive-sulphide deposits. Grab samples from some of these boulders showed copper grades of between 4.1% and 11.7%.

At South Moose Pond, electromagnetic and gravity surveys indicated anomalies in an area where prospectors subsequently found disseminated base metal sulphide minerals in strongly altered volcanic rocks.

At Boundary, the partners plan to drill about 15 short holes as infill between earlier drilling and on extensions of the known deposit, which contains 446,000 tonnes grading 3.5% copper, 3.5% zinc and 0.5% lead plus 23 grams silver per tonne.

The two geophysical anomalies Thundermin and Queenston will be drilling are about 600-800 metres west of Duck Pond, in altered felsic volcanic rocks stratigraphically equivalent to the Duck Pond host rocks. A soil-geochemistry survey on glacial till showed its highest copper and zinc concentrations in the area immediately down-ice from these two EM anomalies.

Following last year’s drilling at Duck Pond proper, the two companies engaged a consulting firm to estimate a new resource figure for the mineralized zones on the property.

Noranda (NOR-T) can back in for a 50% interest in Duck Pond if the partners drill off resources totalling 1 million tonnes of copper metal or 2 million tonnes of zinc, or some combination of the two: effectively, this means that, at published reserve grades, the joint venture would have to find about 14 million more tonnes of mineralization before Noranda’s right kicks in. In that event, Noranda could buy in by completing a feasibility study and financing the partners’ share of the capital cost of bringing the deposit into production.