Ungava a bright spot for nickel exploration

There’s still nothing like a fashionable commodity to bring out the explorers, and nickel’s ascendancy is probably the best thing that has happened to Canadian exploration since, well, the last big nickel discovery.

And it is more than a little interesting that the “other” Labrador — the Cape Smith fold belt in the Nunavik (Ungava) region of northern Quebec — should have proved to be the most durable and prospective of the newer nickel camps. The most productive, too, though Voisey’s Bay was hit with a 5-year handicap in getting to production.

But the Cape Smith belt, with the Falconbridge (FL-T) Raglan operation as its centrepiece, has been the one with the hot hand. Raglan was again the company’s largest nickel producer this past quarter, and work on mill expansion continues. Raglan is forecast to produce 24,500 tonnes nickel in concentrate this year.

Added to that, discoveries of new deposits in the fold belt’s South Raglan trend by Canadian Royalties (CZZ-T) have made Nunavik one of the prime pieces of exploration real estate in the Americas. Following on last year’s announcement of the Mesamax nickel discovery, Canadian Royalties has outlined another deposit, at Lac Mequillon, with an inferred resource of 1.4 million tonnes grading 0.7% nickel, 0.9% copper, 0.6 gram platinum and 2.1 grams palladium per tonne, with gold and cobalt credits.

Royalties’ work, which dates back to 1999, has allowed it to refine its own ideas on exploration in the area (T.N.M., Sept. 10/04). While Royalties went in with “fly it, grid it, drill it” thinking, the technical successes at Mesamax, Mequillon, and several other showings have taught its explorationists that subtle geophysical indicators and a good handle on the stratigraphy offer a better chance at good drill intersections.

Those lessons have been passed on, gratis, to Royalties’ little brother, Golden Valley Mines (GZZ-V), which specializes in grassroots exploration. During an end-of summer site visit to Golden Valley’s West Shoot Out property, a joint venture financed by Little Mountain Resources (LIT-V), The Northern Miner got to see some thoroughly modernized examples of old-style Canadian base metals exploration.

The Shoot Out prospects are in the Kenty Lake area southwest of Mesamax and Mequillon, about 75 km southwest of Mesamax, along the same South trend that hosts the Mesamax, Lac Mequillon, and Expo-Ungava deposits. Cominco (now Teck Cominco [TEK-T]) explored in the area in the 1970s and did some drilling on showings. But newer geophysical systems have proved useful; project manager Myles Johnson, who worked on the project in the Cominco days, notes that “the new airborne system we used last year did come up with anomalies . . . that were never detected before.”

And drilling on previously known showings, with the advantage of better geophysical and structural information, has returned one success so far: six drill holes on the Alpha showing at West Shoot Out intersected massive and disseminated sulphides, with a 12.3-metre intersection in one hole grading 0.85% nickel and 0.43% copper, plus 0.42 gram platinum and 1.45 grams palladium per tonne (T.N.M., Oct. 1/04).

Getty zone

Another 20 km along strike to the southwest, Goldbrook Ventures (GBK-V) recently drilled its Getty zone target, where surface showings were already known and drilling in the 1970s intersected nickel-copper mineralization. Twelve of Goldbrook’s drill holes intersected disseminated to massive sulphides as well.

Canadian Royalties itself has had a further exploration success, drilling the northeastern extension of the Mequillon deposit. The inferred resource at Mequillon occupies part of a synform of sediments, basalt and mafic to ultramafic sills, with a gently plunging axis trending northeast. The resource calculation released in September limited it to a 300-metre-long conceptual open pit, but to the northeast, the mineralization has been intersected as far as 300 metres beyond that boundary; two closer drill holes demonstrated evidence that the mineralization is continuous.

The most distant hole, MQN04-30, intersected a 46.5-metre zone of nickel-copper sulphides, with average grades of 0.92% nickel, 1.11% copper, 0.04% cobalt, 0.3 gram gold, 0.96 gram platinum, and 3.34 grams palladium.

A hole collared 100 metres to the southwest of MQN04-30 intersected 19 metres with 0.51% nickel, 0.52% copper, 0.03% cobalt, 0.14 gram gold, 0.39 gram platinum and 1.44 grams palladium; another collared from the same location, but aimed for a shallower intersection with the zone, returned 2 metres of 0.34% nickel, 1.63% copper, 0.02% cobalt, 0.17 gram gold, 1.49 grams platinum and 4.25 grams palladium.

West and up-plunge from the known resource, five holes intersected shallow mineralization over widths of 1.4-15.2 metres. Average grades were higher than the resource grades, the best being in a 4.3-metre intersection that ran 1.48% nickel, 3.7% copper, 0.08% cobalt, 0.29 gram gold, 0.86 gram platinum and 3.39 grams palladium.

Bravo

Novawest Resources (NVE-V) and Cascadia International Resources (CJ-V) had completed 3,500 metres of a proposed 11,000-metre drilling program by the end of July. Their most significant results so far have come out of the Bravo prospect on the South trend, where six drill holes intersected mainly disseminated copper-nickel mineralization.

Hole NW04-15 cut 15 metres of disseminated and massive sulphides in a zone more remarkable for its platinum and palladium content than for its base metals. Grades averaged 0.4 gram platinum and 2.3 grams palladium per tonne, plus 0.83% nickel, 0.74% copper.

NW04-21 intersected two zones of disseminated mineralization, one 8 metres long grading 0.18% nickel and 0.31% copper with 0.19 gram platinum and 0.81 gram palladium per tonne, and another, lower zone 15 metres long with 0.16% nickel, 0.24% copper, 0.19 gram platinum and 3 grams palladium.

Four other holes intersected disseminated mineralization with lower grades, rarely exceeding 0.1% nickel or copper, but with significant platinum and palladium content.

At the True North property, on the North trend, a 307-sq.-km claim block north of Falconbridge’s Cross Lake and C2 nickel deposits, the partners are earning a 70% interest from Vancouver-based Minera Capital (MNL-V). Novawest and Cascadia bankrolled a 1,246-line-km helicopter electromagnetic survey that began in late August.

Thelon Ventures (THV-V) started late this field season, mobilizing only in mid-August to do ground checking on electromagnetic anomalies discovered in airborne surveys. Thelon holds two land packages — one on the Southern trend, south of Knight’s ground, and another northeast of Falconbridge’s Donaldson deposit.

Bayfield Ventures (BYV-V), which holds a 100-sq.-km property immediately southeast of Thelon and northeast of Donaldson, has yet to report any work.