Partners add ground near Red Lake

Vancouver — Partners Anglogold (AU-N) and Rubicon Minerals (RMX-V) have added three properties to their promising portfolio of ground in the prolific Red Lake gold camp of Ontario.

Rubicon vended in the Adams Lake property into the joint venture in exchange for Anglogold increasing its earn-in expenditures to $5.1 million from $4.5 million. The major also agreed to make yearly cash payments of $15,000 to Rubicon as long as the property remains in the joint venture.

The property lies 6 km east of the Goldcorp‘s (G-T) Red Lake mine. Historical drilling at the Adams Lake prospect returned up to 85.8 grams gold per tonne over 1.5 metres.

The two other properties dealt into the joint venture are 11 claim units in the Slate Bay area and 13 patented claims in the west end of the Red Lake camp.

The Red Lake project hosts several gold prospects in the Dorion-McCuaig corridor, a 2.5-by-1-km extension of the Red Lake mine trend, which includes Placer Dome‘s (PDG-T) Campbell mine, as well as the Red Lake mine.

Last year, a 1,600-metre drill program returned some encouraging gold values from the Slate Bay area. Located some 11 km west-northwest of the Red Lake mine, holes 1 through 5 targeted a 100-metre strike length portion of the mineralization to vertical depths of 150-to-250 metres. Hole 1 hit 1.19 gram gold per tonne over 15.6 metres, while hole 3 returned 1.25 grams gold over 5.7 metres, including a higher grade section running 7.65 grams gold over 0.34 metre. Hole 4 cut 2.56 grams gold over 2.3 metres.

Hole 6 was drilled 700 metres to the west-southwest and cut anomalous gold values associated with two shear zones.

Mineralization occurs in disseminated and veined pyrite with minor chalcopyrite associated with biotite and chlorite in sheeted quartz veins near a contact with a large intrusive body. An earlier geophysical survey outlined a 2-km-by-500-metre induced polarization anomaly over the zone.

The companies plan an aggressive drill program over the project in 2002.