White Cliff Minerals has unearthed widespread visible iron oxide-copper-gold (IOGC) and uranium-silver mineralisation during the company’s initial field program at its promising Great Bear Lake project in northern Canada.
The swag of targets discovered include outcropping copper-uranium-cobalt-silver mineralisation and several off-the-charts uranium readings from a handheld scintillometer. Management also revealed that a CAD$168,000 (AU$183,000) Canadian Government grant has been received to further exploration activities at the site where a grab-bag of geological targets warrant further investigation.
Great Bear Lake sits 240km south-west of the White Cliff’s Coppermine project in the Nunuvut territory, with 2900 square kilometres of ground within the IOCG-prospective Great Bear magmatic zone (GBMZ). Intriguingly, the GBMZ has been assessed by the Northwest Territories Geosciences office as having the greatest potential for a substantial-scale IOCG and uranium mineral deposit in Canada.
A few of the more interesting targets generated from the company’s field program include the Glacier, Mile Lake Skarn breccia, Rust and Spud Bay prospects.
The Glacier prospect comprises an outcropping IOCG mineral system of more than 1100m of strike length that sits 1km north-east of the historic Echo Bay mine. At the eastern extent of the strike, a body of brecciated, potassic-altered andesite hosts semi-massive chalcopyrite, with the copper mineral estimated to be about 10m in thickness and continuous for 60m.
An imminent MobileMT aerial high-tech survey has been planned to test the prospect for a conductive response, given the level of mineralisation found at surface. A positive response would make for a compelling drill target.
White Cliff Minerals managing director Troy Whittaker said: “We could not be any more impressed with what we have seen in such a short period of time. This Project is clearly under-explored with new potential discoveries having been made continuously and immediately. This, coupled with confirmation of the historic mineralised trends at Spud Bay and Thompson really impresses the potential for district-scale opportunity across a polymetallic suite of minerals.”
The Mile Lake Skarn breccia represents a polymetallic target of silver, copper, zinc, lead and molybdenum, with intense copper mineralisation identified along 55m of outcropping rock that has an estimated thickness of between 10m and 15m before moving undercover.
The company’s Rust prospect has three parallel structures identified and sits 3.5km east of the historic Eldorado mine site. A handheld scintillometer returned several stunning readings for uranium exceeding the maximum 65,000 counts-per-second (CPS), representing a possible extension to high-grade uranium.
Several rock-chip samples have been nabbed to determine the contained uranium content.
Management says the field program provided confirmation of the historic Spud Bay’s copper find, with resampling conducted on more than 700m of outcropping strike length before also disappearing under ground cover.
Spud Bay sits 550m along strike from the historic Bonanza and El Bonanza silver mines and is considered prospective for polymetallic mineralisation. Samples were taken across a 450m north-west/south-east strike.
The company notes that it has forwarded the first batch of 95 samples to the ALS laboratory in Yellowknife and it is planning to kick off an initial field program at its Nunavut copper-silver-gold project in the next few weeks.
The Great Bear Lake field program appears to have identified more targets than are found in a shooting gallery and White Cliff will be keen to test them all with the speed of the pronghorn, Canada’s fastest land animal.
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By Craig Nolan
