Berland prepares for busy exploration season

Junior Berland Resources (BNL-V) has closed a brokered $350,000 private placement financing with Yorkton Securities to finance exploration at properties in Ontario and Manitoba.

Berland will immediately advance Falconbridge (FL-T) $75,000 to begin a limited program of diamond drilling to test selected base metal targets on the Saganash joint-venture property, 100 km northwest of Timmins, Ont.

In 1998, Falconbridge staked 16 claims totalling 37.1 sq. km in the Saganash greenstone belt to cover 16 priority base-metal targets outlined from its own airborne geophysical survey. At the same time, Berland staked 18 claims covering 42.4 sq. km, contiguous with the Falconbridge ground. This acquisition was based on the release (by the Ontario Geological Survey) of till sampling results showing diamond indicator minerals, including G-10 garnets.

Berland signed a joint-venture agreement with Falconbridge in late 1999 to test the base-metal potential of the Saganash property. Berland can earn a 60% interest in this ground by spending $562,250 in exploration over three years, with Falconbridge acting as operator. Upon earn-in, the property will be advanced by Berland on a 60-40 participating basis up to a positive prefeasibility study.

Falconbridge will then have the one-time option of assuming operatorship and earning an additional 25% by funding the property to a bankable feasibility study. Falconbridge also holds a right-of-first-refusal to form a separate joint venture with respect to any precious metal or diamond discovery on the Saganash property.

Last winter Falconbridge completed initial ground geophysical surveys on all Saganash claims. A five-hole, 800-metre diamond drilling program is scheduled to begin this month.

Elsewhere in Ontario, Berland is about to start an initial prospecting and sampling program to assess the platinum-group-metal potential of the Roaring River property in the Thunder Lake district. This grassroots property is 50 km north of North American Palladium’s operating palladium-platinum mine.

Berland can earn a 100% interest in the property by making cash payments totalling $36,000 and issuing 75,000 shares over three years. The 17.3-sq.-km property was staked to cover a distinctive airborne magnetic anomaly where a mafic-ultramafic intrusive structure has been identified.

This past March, at the Watts River property 50 km east of Snow Lake in northern Manitoba, Berland intersected a new massive sulphide stringer horizon while drill-testing the main mineralized zone. Beginning at a downhole depth of 201.8 metres, the hole cut a 7.03-metre interval grading 3.07% copper, 0.64% zinc, 31.1 grams silver and 0.36 gram gold per tonne (including 2.4 metres of 5.58% copper, 1.31% zinc, 59 grams silver and 0.51 gram gold), before being prematurely halted some 200 metres short of its target. Berland and joint venture partner Fort Knox Gold Resources (FNX-T) managed to partially complete only two holes of a planned five holes before the program was halted due to an early spring thaw.

Berland and Fort Knox can earn a 100% interest in the Watts River and Grassberry properties from Hudson Bay Exploration and Development by spending $4 million over a five-year period, subject to a 51% back-in right. Previous work by Hudson Bay resulted in the discovery of the Main mineralized zone, which has been tested by 24 widely-spaced drill holes. The discovery hole intersected disseminated to massive sulphides that averaged 1.68% copper, 3.48% zinc, 55.7 grams silver and 1.17 grams gold over 5.6 metres at a vertical depth of 100 metres. The zone extends over a length of 1,600 metres and to a depth of 650 metres.

A winter program, scheduled to begin in December, will include ground geophysics and diamond drilling to further test the new East zone discovery. The Main zone will be targeted with closer-spaced drilling. Cumberland Resources (CBD-T) holds a 27% stake in Berland.