Rollingdam, New Brunswick —
Over the past two field seasons, the Montreal-based junior carried out systematic exploration on the 44.7-sq.-km property, which lies 70 km southwest of Fredericton and some 25 km northwest of St. George. This work, which involved prospecting, geological mapping, ground geophysical surveys, soil geochemical sampling and trenching, encountered encouraging gold values over a strike length of 2 km.
Freewest has discovered several intrusion-related zones of gold mineralization associated with the contact metamorphic halo of the St. George batholith, in an area of the province best known for tungsten and tin mineralization. The past-producing Mount Pleasant tungsten mine is 8 km to the east.
The Clarence Stream property is readily accessible by a network of provincial roads from all points in southwestern New Brunswick. Hwy. 770 bisects the property, as does a major power line servicing the Mount Pleasant mine and the neighbouring village of Rollingdam.
Freewest optioned the Clarence Stream property from local prospector Reginald Cox in May 1999. To earn a 100% interest, Freewest must make cash payments totalling $200,000 and issue 100,000 shares over four years.
Cox had discovered gold-bearing boulders while prospecting along newly built forestry roads, with the aid of data derived from a 1992 stream-sediment geochemical survey by the Geological Survey of Canada. Provincial government mineral studies also served as a guide.
Grabs from the boulders were as high as 45.6 grams gold per tonne and carried arsenic and antimony. When representatives of Freewest first walked the Clarence Stream property, they collected 23 grab samples from float and subcropping material along a 1-km trend. These samples carried gold values ranging from 0.09 to 76.8 grams, for an average of 13 grams.
There was no exposed outcrop to speak of, said Project Manager George Murphy during a recent site visit by The Northern Miner. “All we had were boulders.” Murphy managed to find one small outcrop of gabbro in the Central zone area, where a narrow shear zone ran 2 grams. “We figured the boulders weren’t too far from the source,” he explained, and the angular shape of the boulders suggested they had not traveled far.
In the summer of 1999, Freewest began a program of line-cutting, prospecting, geological mapping and soil sampling, as well as induced polarization and magnetic geophysics. Additional locales of highly-anomalous-to-bonanza-grade mineralized float and subcrop were subsequently discovered.
Several extensive gold-arsenic-antimony soil anomalies were found to coincide with the float and subcrop. The soil anomalies are oriented in a northeast-southwest fashion, but Murphy believes glacial movement may have dragged the anomalies out in this direction.
Late last year, Freewest began a program of excavator-trenching, which continued on through 2000 at several locales. Two zones in particular yielded significant gold values, namely the West and East showings.
The West zone was opened up along a strike length of at least 100 metres, exposing a system of sheeted or parallel quartz veins in altered and unaltered gabbro. High-grade gold mineralization is hosted in two distinct varieties of quartz veins. The first is a series of white, re-crystallized sugary quartz veins containing fine-grained visible gold and no sulphides. The second consists of white-to-grey, sugary quartz veins containing appreciable-to-abundant, disseminated-to-clotty arsenopyrite, stibnite, pyrrhotite and pyrite.
The quartz veins pinch and swell along strike but average a width of about 1 metre. Disseminated sulphides also occur in the altered quartz-flooded gabbro over appreciable widths. A channel sample across this lithotype cut 6.1 grams across 6 metres, including 3 metres of 10.9 grams.
Selected channel samples from the West zone include:
2.3 grams over 2 metres;
27.8 grams over 1 metre;
68.1 grams over 3 metres, including 200 grams over 1 metre;
12.4 grams over 3 metres;
12.1 grams over 4 metres;
8.4 grams over 6 metres, including 3 metres of 15.9 grams;
5.8 grams over 1.5 metres;
23.8 grams over 1 metre;
5.7 grams over 1.5 metres;
8.5 grams over 3 metres; and
6.3 grams over 3 metres.
A limited amount of trenching has been done around the discovery showing in the central area. This area is characterized by outcrops of strongly sheared sediments intruded by gabbroic sills. Both the metasediments and gabbro intrusions contain appreciable disseminated sulphides and are crosscut by a network of sugary quartz veins and veinlets.
A further 700 metres to the east, trenching has extended the strike length of the East showing to 700 metres, comprising a main showing at the northern end of the trenches and two parallel zones. Mineralization is hosted in brittle-to-ductile shear zones, healed by quartz veins and quartz flooding. The exposed shear zone varies in width from 2 to 12 metres and is developed largely within hornfelsic sediments. The largest quartz vein has a maximum width of 1.5 metres and averages 0.75 metre.
The quartz veins contain appreciable-to-abundant stibnite, arsenopyrite, pyrrhotite and pyrite. The altered wallrocks contain disseminated and clotty sulphides, as well as quartz veinlets. Swampy conditions in the East zone limited Freewest’s ability to channel-sample the trenches, and representative grabs were taken.
Ten trenches were excavated along the 700 metres of strike length. Select grabs from the easternmost trenches yielded values ranging from 5.75 to 20.24 grams. On the western end of the showing, three grab samples from trench 7 assayed 574 grams, 114.2 grams and 71.8 grams. Channel sampling in this trench returned 25.1 grams over 3 metres, 31.8 grams over 3 metres, 48.9 grams over 3 metres, and 20 grams over 3 metres.
Elsewhere on the Clarence Stream property, Freewest completed additional soil sampling this fall, collecting about 2,000 samples on an expanded grid. The company defined numerous gold-arsenic-antimony anomalies that rival those overlying the East and West showings.
Well-defined anomalies
The quartz vein mineralization at Clarence Stream strikes northeast-southwest and is aligned roughly parallel to the northwestern contact of the Magagduavic granite. Disseminated and replacement pyrrhotite, as well as arsenopyrite, is common within metasediments and intrusive rocks, forming well-defined magnetic anomalies peripheral to the batholith.
Fine-grained gold occurs in association with arsenopyrite, pyrrhotite, stibnite, tungsten, bismuth, zinc and, to a lesser extent, molybdenum and copper.
The contact halo emanates outward from the St. George batholith for at least 1 km into flanking metasediments and metagabbros, forming rusty, resistant ridges consisting of highly altered, recrystallized lithotypes. Rock types include variably silicified, hornfelsic metasediments, plus biotite, calc-silicate, amphibole-rich hornfels and metagabbros.
Previous exploration work pertaining to the St. George batholith dates back to the 1950s, with the discovery of tin and base metals. Subsequent work during the 1960s through to the 1980s focused on the exploration for tin, tungsten, molybdenum and uranium. Billiton spent more than $120 million to construct the Mount Pleasant tungsten-molybdenum mine, which operated from 1983 to 1985, before falling tungsten prices and metallurgical recovery problems forced its closure.
There has been little exploration work done for gold. Gold exploration has been limited to the central and eastern portions of the intrusion, with no recorded work in the vicinity of the Clarence Stream property. Gold and base metal quartz veins have been found near the eastern margins of the Mount Douglas Granite at the Shear mine, and the Nerepis prospect near Welsford.
Granite-granodiorite
Malcolm McLeod, a provincial government geologist, identified gold mineralization in a quartz vein system next to a particular phase of granite while mapping a portion of the St. George batholith during a mineral development project. The study predicted that this particular granite-granodiorite assemblage should be a fertile granite for gold.
McLeod sees many similarities between the intrusion-related gold deposits of the Tintina gold belt in Alaska and Yukon and the deposits of the Devonian-age St. George batholith, which consist of several phases of granitic intrusion.
A number of junior companies and individuals have picked up ground in the immediate area of Freewest, including
Freewest’s exploration efforts have been largely focused on northwestern Quebec and northern Ontario. In the past two years, the junior has concentrated its gold exploration in New Brunswick — at the Golden Ridge property near Woodstock, and at Clarence Stream. In Ontario, the company is exploring for platinum group minerals on three separate properties, having recently provided project updates on the wholly owned Bermuda and Moshkinabi properties. As well, the junior is awaiting results for the final 11 drill holes completed on the Folson Lake property, 100 km west of Sudbury. Folson Lake is a 50-50 joint venture with
Freewest has about $1 million cash on hand, plus 35.2 million shares outstanding.
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