Swayze, Shining Tree recapture ray of limelight

On geological maps of northeastern Ontario, the Kenogamissi batholith sits like a giant blister on the heel of the Abitibi greenstone belt, interrupting the northeast-southwest flow of the prolific belt and creating a physical and psychological barrier to exploration. Why venture to the other side of the intrusion when the richest ore has always been found in Abitibi proper?

Precisely because the other side — namely the Swayze greenstone belt to the west and, to a lesser extent, the Shining Tree belt to the south — is relatively underexplored, according to several small companies returning to these areas to take advantage of the resurgence in the gold price and easy access to flow-through financing.

“When people start going back to look at Swayze, then you know it’s good times in the industry,” says Brian Atkinson, regional resident geologist for the Timmins district. He considers the carbonate-altered mafic volcanics of the Swayze belt to be prime hunting ground for gold deposits similar to those found in the Timmins camp.

Geologists have long postulated that the Swayze belt may be the western extension of the Abitibi, with the same potential for giant ore deposits. But the theory has never been proven, and Swayze, though dotted with mineral occurrences, has yet to yield a significant deposit. The Shining Tree belt has a similar history of small-fry discoveries.

But several companies, including VenCan Gold (), are keeping up the search. Armed with a strong gold price and recent research from the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS), VenCan is focusing its efforts on the Cayenne and Chili properties within the Woman River anticline on the Swayze belt, southwest of Timmins.

“We felt as if we had to find something that was a little contrarian, but also fish where the fish are,” says Kirk McKinnon, president and chief executive officer of VenCan. “I think we’re the first movers in a new look at the western Abitibi.”

Pretty daring of McKinnon, calling it the western Abitibi. But then VenCan’s entire business plan rests on the premise that Swayze is not an independent belt at all but rather an extension of the Abitibi that was merely cut off by the batholith intrusion.

The two belts do have similar stratigraphy and tectonic history, according to a 2003 open-file report by OGS geologists Jens Becker and Keith Benn that analyzes extensive new structural, geochemical, geophysical and geochronological evidence. The VenCan properties themselves are underlain by units now considered to be time-stratigraphic equivalents of the prolific portion of the Abitibi.

VenCan plans to focus its exploration efforts on banded iron formation and shear-hosted gold deposits. Other companies looking for gold on the belt include:

– Greenshield Resources (GRE-V), which intersected elevated gold values in a 23-hole drill program conducted in Newton Twp. last summer;

– JRL Resources (JJJ-V), which just raised $285,000 in flow-through financing to drill-test geophysical conductors on its Horwood gold property;

– Osprey Gold (OSGL-O), a junior focusing on the Jerome mine, which produced an estimated 57,000 oz. gold and 15,000 oz. silver before abruptly closing for lack of manpower during the Second World War;

– Richmont Mines (RIC-T), holder of the Sewell and Cripple Creek properties; and

– Young-Shannon Gold Mines (GYS-V), which is due to resume drilling on its C-Prime gold deposit in Chester Twp.

From the Swayze belt, a gentle curve around the bottom side of the Kenogamissi batholith leads to the southern extension of the Abitibi belt, or the Shining Tree area, where another quiet gold rush is taking place.

“Even though the geology in the Shining Tree area is similar to the Timmins and Kirkland Lake areas, it was never subjected to the same intensity of exploration,” says Gerhard Meyer, resident geologist for the Kirkland Lake area. “Recent results clearly demonstrate potential for the area.”

The latest rush is centred around Temex Resources‘ (tme-v) Juby gold project in Tyrrell Twp., where recent work on a deposit formerly held by Inmet Mining (IMN-T) suggests a drill-indicated resource of 8.61 million tonnes grading 1.73 grams gold per tonne (479,000 oz.) and an inferred resource of 3.51 million tonnes grading 1.65 grams gold per tonne (186,000 oz.) at a cutoff grade of 1 gram per tonne.

Having outlined this low-grade, potentially open-pit-minable resource at Juby, Temex is now concentrating on finding higher-grade mineralization on the nearby Jumping Moose and Latchford project areas. The mineralized material could be mixed with the Juby material to create a viable gold operation, says President and CEO Brian Groves.

The exploration program follows the discovery in late 2003 of a Proterozoic, mafic intrusive boulder near Latchford, Ont., which returned more than 6,000 grams gold per tonne in vein material similar to high-grade silver veins found in the Cobalt silver camp. Temex staked more than 240 sq. km around the car-sized boulder and called the land package the Latchford project.

A subsequent, 16-hole drill program collared on several coincident soil geochemical, induced-polarization, and magnetic anomalies failed to find the source of the mineralization. However, a more recent trenching program at the Merico Ethel property, part of the project area, returned up to 5.99 grams gold per tonne and 6.33% copper over 0.5 metre from channel samples in narrow, polymetallic, steeply dipping quartz-carbonate veins and vein-shear systems hosted by diabase.

“The game plan is to find gold-enriched veins similar to the Cobalt veins,” says Ian Campbell, vice-president of exploration. (Diabase sills are an important host to Proterozoic silver veins in the Cobalt camp, which produced about 450 million oz. silver in the previous century.)

Temex is also working with Goldeye Explorations (GGY-V) on a property along the Tyrrell shear zone, near the main Juby zone. Last summer, the 50-50 joint venture intersected 30 metres grading 0.89 gram gold per tonne on the contact between metasediments and mafic volcanics in one of 12 holes.

Nearby, International KRL Resources (IRK-V) is investigating four known gold zones on the Copper Hill gold property, along the Larder Lake Break. Last year, shallow reverse-circulation drilling intersected 1.82 grams gold per tonne over 7.14 metres, and 1.5 grams gold per tonne over 17.34 metres, suggesting a widespread, potentially bulk-minable gold system.

Closer to Matachewan, Golden Valley Mines (GZZ-V) is investigating syenite-hosted gold mineralization on the Arbade property, where prospectors sunk a small exploration shaft in the 1930s. Syenite dykes on the property are crosscut by a stockwork of mineralized quartz veins with grades of up to 5 grams gold per tonne.

Phoenix Matachewan Mines (PMM-V) is also conducting gold exploration in the area based on workings from the 1930s. At the end of 2004, the company announced narrow, high-grade (up to 30 grams per tonne) intersections from a drilling program on the Argyle property, where the former Ashley mine produced about 50,000 oz. gold. Future work will focus on mineralized veins associated with alkalic rocks drilling and on the Galer Lake fault, a structure known to host anomalous gold mineralization and green carbonate alteration.

East of Matachewan, Brigadier Gold (BRG-V) recently intersected wide intersections of up to 14 metres grading 1.7 grams gold per tonne, including values of up to 4.1 grams gold per tonne on two of seven gold targets on the Chartre-Dufresne gold property. The mineralization is hosted by sulphide-enriched, strongly altered sheared mafic metavolcanic rocks that Brigadier intends to follow-up with an induced-polarization survey and further drilling this year
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— The author is a Toronto-based geologist and freelance writer specializing in mining and the environment. She is principal of GeoPen Communications, www.geopen.com.