SAM explores ground near Val d’Or

Prospecting and geophysical surveys will begin this summer at the Grenab project, about 120 km east of Val d’Or, Que. Southern Africa Minerals (SAF-T) acquired the ground based on its potential to host volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits.

Previous work by government geologists confirmed the presence of metamorphosed equivalents to the Archean rocks hosting base metal mines near Val d’Or. A major company acquired the ground in the early 1990s and then discovered the Langlade occurrence, where values of up to 5.5% copper and 9.3% zinc were obtained over narrow intervals. The mineralization is associated with an assemblage of alteration minerals representing the high-grade metamorphic equivalent of a chlorite-sericite alteration zone typically associated with VMS deposits of the Abitibi greenstone belt.

While the major carried out limited drilling in the early 1990s, the project was dropped, in part because of low metal prices. Southern Africa Minerals views the project as an opportunity to test defined and yet-untested targets along a prospective belt immediately southeast of the Grenville front, within the Parautochthonous domain of the Grenville province.

The land package covers known geophysical and geochemical anomalies in 24 separate claim blocks within a favourable belt of rocks stretching for 100 km.