BASE METALS — Partners start work at Duck Pond — First phase to include 20-hole drilling program

In yet another illustration of the rebirth of exploration in central Newfoundland, a drilling program, now under way, could blow a decade’s dust off two base metal deposits that have been inactive since the early 1990s.

At the Duck Pond property, about 30 km southeast of Buchans in the island’s Central Mineral Belt, a joint venture between Thundermin Resources (THR-T) and Queenston Mining (QMI-T) is reassessing two large base metal sulphide deposits first outlined by Noranda (NOR-T) in the late 1980s.

The Duck Pond deposits sport a 6-million-tonne resource with an average grade of 3.4% copper, 6.4% zinc and 1.1% lead, with 61 grams silver and 0.9 gram gold per tonne. About two-thirds of the resource is in the Upper Duck lens, a southeasterly dipping massive sulphide body 250 to 450 metres below surface with 3.9 million tonnes of 3.8% copper, 6.7% zinc, 1.1% lead, 71 grams silver and 1.1 grams gold.

A second mineralized zone, the Lower Duck lens, is believed to be the faulted continuation of the Upper Duck lens and lies about 700 metres below surface. It contains 1 million tonnes with 2.8% copper, 5% zinc, 1.4% lead, 33 grams silver and 0.6 gram gold per tonne. The smaller Sleeper deposit, with 676,000 tonnes at an average grade of 1.7% copper, 8.7% zinc, 1.2% lead, 63 grams silver and 0.5 gram gold, is conformable with, and lies about 50 metres below, the Upper Duck.

A separate deposit, the Boundary, has a resource of 446,000 tonnes and grades 3.5% copper, 3.5% zinc and 0.5% lead, with 23 grams silver. About 4.5 km northeast of the Duck Pond deposits, it is near surface and is potentially minable by open-pit methods.

In all, the property covers 118 sq. km underlain by Paleozoic volcanic and sedimentary rocks, and has several untested base metal prospects, as well as the deposits defined in earlier work.

The first phase of the Thundermin-Queenston program, to cost $650,000, includes a 20-hole surface drilling campaign to test extensions of the Upper Duck and Sleeper lenses. Thundermin, the operator, will also be re-logging core from previous drill holes to see whether a new interpretation of the geology may surface. There is also an electromagnetic anomaly near the Boundary deposit; it has not been drilled before and will be a high-priority target in the present program.

In March of this year, Thundermin took up an option on the property from Noranda. Under the agreement, Thundermin can earn a full interest by spending $1.4 million on exploration by the end of June 2000, making a production decision, paying $500,000 to Noranda by the end of June 2003, and putting the deposit into production by June 2006.

Thundermin, in turn, brought in Queenston to earn half of the option deal in May. Queenston is providing the initial $1.4 million for exploration and has subscribed for 682,000 Thundermin shares at a total cost of $150,000. Noranda has kept a 2% net smelter return royalty on the property and gets a $3-million cash payment should the project reach full production.

Noranda, which had discovered Duck Pond in June 1987, put the project on the shelf in the early 1990s following a feasibility study but has retained a back-in right under which it can earn back a half-interest. To do that, Noranda must provide a positive feasibility study and finance Thundermin’s (and Queenston’s) share of the costs of bringing the project into production.

In a second phase of work to follow, there will be more drilling on the Duck Pond and Boundary deposits, and several targets that had not been investigated before. Also planned is a program of metallurgical work to test ways recovery might be improved and concentrate grades increased. If the two phases of work prove successful, Thundermin and Queenston would move to an underground sampling program and a feasibility study.