Eastmain compares Eleonore South to promising Roberto zone

Results from recent trenching at the lonore South project in the James Bay region of Quebec show gold occurrences with some similarities to Goldcorp‘s (G-T, GG-N) Roberto zone 12 km away.

The lonore South project is a three-way joint venture between Eastmain Resources (ER-T), Aziumut Exploration (AZM-V) and Les Mines Opinaca, a subsidiary of Goldcorp.

Goldcorp acquired the lonore project, just north of lonore South, in March 2006 from what is now Virginia Mines (VGQ-T).

In 2003 Virginia reported that channel samples from similar rock horizons yielded comparable values 0.81 grams gold across 37 metres and 2.42 grams gold per tonne over 5.25 metres from trenching in what became the Roberto zone.

Grab samples from the Roberto zone contained up to 10.25 grams gold per tonne and the deposit remains open in strike and depth. As well, more than 70% of 212 drill holes dug across the property had grades higher than 10 grams gold per tonne.

The new gold occurrence at lonore South was found within altered sulphide-bearing sediments similar to those found at Roberto. The 10-km anomaly has highly irregular arsenic and antimony, which were key pathfinder elements to ore at Roberto.

Stripping and trenching of sediments containing up to 3% disseminated arsenopyrite exposed a new gold occurrence in Trench 1E called the JT target. The JT target averaged 1.49 grams gold per tonne across a width of 16 metres, including metre-wide samples assaying up to 5.91 grams gold per tonne.

A few grab samples from this trench graded up to 12.95 grams gold per tonne.

The Roberto-style mineralized interval is open both to the north and to the south. Grab samples graded up to 5.72 grams gold per tonne in a gold-enriched zone 475 metres south of Trench 1E.

Eastmain, the operator of the site, was busy through 2006, completing 200 sq. km of prospecting and geological mapping, 300 km of line cutting and 800 line-km of airborne surveys. The company collected about 8,600 geochemical samples at a 50 by 200-metre sample interval over the Main, North, West and South grids. As well, about 2,800 metres of mechanical trenching was completed though the trenches won’t be cleaned, mapped or sampled until the summer of 2007 due to weather conditions.

Eastmain will spend at least $1 million on exploration during 2007, focusing on prospecting, trenching and drilling of geochemical targets.

Goldcorp acquired the lonore gold project for US$425 million, causing a lot of speculation on how big the project would get, as there was no reserve or resource estimate. The broader lonore area is mostly unexplored and has the potential to develop into a major gold camp.