High-grade gold in one of Canada’s most prolific gold belts

Multiple advanced gold projects have been developed in the area over the past few years including:

• • Red Lake High-Grade Gold Camp operated by Evolution Mining (ASX: EVN): historic production of over 27 Moz at +20 g/t gold
  • Musselwhite deposit operated by Newmont Goldcorp 2.3 Moz Reserves
  • Madsen Project operated by Pure Gold Mining: 2.06 Moz @ 8.9 g/t gold (Indicated) & 0.47 Moz @ 7.7 g/t gold (Inferred)
  • West Red Lake Project operated by West Red Lake Gold: 1.09 Moz @ 7.6 g/t gold (Inferred)

Springpole Lake Project operated by First Mining: 4.67 Moz @ 1.04 g/t gold (Indicated)There are a number of high-priority targets at the Pickle Crow Gold Project that have either not been followed up or have had little or no modern exploration test work undertaken on them.

These include multiple unmined lode positions surrounding the historic underground workings, including potential new high-grade gold lodes as well as a number of shallow, near surface, broad mineralised zones that require exploration testing regionally across the 190 km2 project area.

A history of highly successful high-grade gold mining

Geology and mineralisation

The Pickle Crow Gold Deposit is a high-grade, shear-hosted, mesothermal Archean lode gold deposit. The deposit occurs primarily within mafic volcanics and banded iron formation (BIF) units in the Pickle Crow assemblage of the Pickle Lake Greenstone Belt in the Uchi Lake Sub-province of the Superior Craton of the Canadian Shield.

Mineralisation is focused around steeply northwest dipping, regional scale shear zones with the bulk of the mineralisation hosted near the Main Break structure, proximal to the highly strained, unconformable boundary between the Pickle Crow assemblage and the mafic-intermediate volcanics of the younger Confederation assemblage. A restricted, late-basin, Temiskaming-like sedimentary assemblage has also been identified in the hangingwall of this structure.

Multiple mineralisation styles have so far been identified on the property:

Quartz-Gold-Tungsten (+/-Tourmaline) Veins: These were the main focus of historical mining, frequently grading +15 g/t gold.
Banded Iron Formation (BIF) Mineralisation: Stringers and sulphide mineralisation replacing iron minerals in the banded iron-formation.
Shear-Zone Hosted Mineralisation: Wide zones of shearing and alteration with discontinuous quartz veining and disseminated pyrite. Previously unmined and underexplored.

Quartz-Arsenopyrite stockwork veins in BIF: Underexplored mineralisation style.

Historical mining was focused on mining the quartz-gold-tungsten veins, the largest of which was the No.1 Vein (900 metre surface strike, mined to >1,500 metres below surface).

Excellent location and infrastructure

The Pickle Crow deposit is located in the Tier-1 Mining Jurisdiction of Ontario, Canada. The project is 400 km North of Thunder bay on State Route 590 with grid power less than 5 km from the project. There is year-round, paved road access to the project, as well as commercial flight access to Sioux Lookout located 2 hours’ drive to the South.

Local services including shopping, hospitals and heavy equipment rental are located less than 5 km from the project in the town of Pickle Lake. The region has a recent history of mining and a skilled workforce is available in the region.

A 225tpd mill gravity mill was constructed on the Project in 2006 but never commissioned. Offices and core facilities are in good condition. Exploration can be conducted year-round.

Metallurgy

Excellent conventional gold recoveries of more than 98% gold recovered from the historic mining operation.

During the successful operation of the Pickle Crow mine from 1935 to 1966, recoveries of +98% were reported from a gravity plus cyanidation circuit.

Gravity recoveries for the period 1935 to 1948 are reported at +40%, increasing to around 60% in the later years of the mine with improving technology.