By KELLY LOUISEIZE
A winter diamond drilling program has offered up a treasure trove of assays from the massive sulphide zone discovered on MetalCORP’s 100-per-cent owned Big Lake property.
It has been three years since professional geologist Aubrey Eveleigh decided to follow a fault line starting from Michigan across Lake Superior waters to Marathon, Ontario, to find a base metal resource and a precious group metals reef. There was no history on the Big Lake property. No other juniors were sniffing around, either, but Eveleigh and his team had an educated hunch that resources existed below.
“This was just a concept with no occurrences around and it turned out quite well,” Eveleigh, vice-president of exploration with MetalCORP says with an accomplished laugh.
“From a concept to a discovery is a big step.”
Recent high grade assays with 7.5 per cent copper, 2.2 per cent zinc, 138.0 grams per tonne (g/t) silver and 9.2 g/t gold in hole BL06-24 have been discovered from zone BL 14.
“This is a spectacular drill hole with high grade numbers,” Eveleigh says. “The value per tonne is somewhere between $600 and $700 US.”
More drilling will determine whether this high-grade mineralization is consistent throughout the four-metre wide true zone. Three new holes have been drilled to follow a down dip direction.
More holes will be drilled horizontally.
Eveleigh has tested one hole (BL06-23) along strike which was approximately 210 m away from the zone and came up with yields of 3.7 per cent copper, 2.2 per cent 81 grams per tonne silver and 1.5 grams per tonne gold over 3.1 metres.
“It is not as high grade, but it is roughly still $300 US per tonne.”
Zone BL 14 displays the classic characteristics of a Precambrian volcanic hosted massive sulphide mineralization system. All previous drill holes have intersected varying amounts of copper, zinc and iron sulphide within a zone mostly composed of broken rock fragments that has been hydrothermally altered.
Exploration is ongoing as the team works to define the depth of the resource and how far reaching it is. MetalCORP has approximately $3 million in cash set aside for this exploration.
This new find is in addition to the reef-style platinum (Pt) and palladium (Pd) mineralization that was discovered in drill holes BL04-5 and BL04-6 last March. The zone assayed 0.5 grams per tonne (g/t) of Pt and 0.6 g/t Pd, 0.2 per cent of nickel and 0.1 per cent copper over 2.11 m from hole 5 alone.
For the time being MetalCORP has decided to go this project alone.
“We may or may not do a deal (with another mining company) depending on what they offer. It has to be a good offer for the shareholders.”
A “good offer” can be a moving target for a new resource discovery.
An offer based on two drill hole results may not bring in as much clout as one based on 10 drill holes with assays yielding high-grade values.
Eveleigh can access investment houses to gather more financial support, but when it comes to taking the project from a resource to the feasibility stage or reserve stage, major mining companies are the best suitors, he says.
Significant copper, platinum and gold producers have approached the junior.
“(But) we are going to carry on like there is nobody coming after us,” Eveleigh says. “We are trying to stay focused on the geology and exploration.
“We have had several significant mining companies courting us. We are talking to them to see if there is some value there, but at the same time we do have money and can still carry on. We are not in a desperate situation but we will probably have to make a strategic decision somewhere into our programming within the two years.”
