Puma on the prowl near historic Brunswick mine

Shares of Puma Exploration (TSXV: PUM; US-OTC: PUXPF) traded higher after the junior announced it  has acquired a 6.5 sq. km property with a newly discovered volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) zone just 6 km north of the No. 12 orebody at the past-producing Brunswick zinc-lead mine in northern New Brunswick’s Bathurst camp.

The Brunswick mine, classified as a world-class VMS-type deposit, was one of the world’s largest underground zinc-lead mines and operated for nearly 50 years before its final owner, Xstrata Zinc, an Xstrata subsidiary, shut it down in March 2013.

Puma has optioned the property — which it is calling the Brunswick North VMS project — from a local prospector who discovered high-grade massive sulphide boulders close to the former Brunswick mine. One of the boulders graded 3.8 grams gold per tonne, 158 grams silver per tonne, 17.3% lead and 8.5% zinc. Other samples taken assayed 2.4 grams gold, 174.1 grams silver, 0.3% copper, 23% lead and 3.8% zinc, and 1.8 grams gold, 225.1 grams silver, 0% copper, 11.5% lead and 5.4% zinc.

The prospector collected the samples along the contact of a strong, positive magnetic anomaly measuring 2.5 km long and 500 metres wide.

Two of the boulders were collected from a trench that tested a very low frequency (VLF) geophysical conductor, and a third boulder was found 300 metres east. More VLF targets remain to be tested throughout the project area.

The property has never been drilled.

Puma has completed a one-day reconnaissance-trenching program to look for the source of the boulders. The company has excavated four trenches in the area of the initial boulder discovery and uncovered disseminated to semi-massive banded sulphides in a trench over 7 metres. In another trench, a disseminated to massive sulphide horizon was uncovered over 15 metres.

The two discoveries are 150 metres apart, and the massive-sulphide mineralization mostly holds banded massive pyrite and arsenopyrite with an anomalous zinc content that the company says appears to be related to the contact between mafic volcanic rocks and the deepwater clastic sediments of the Boucher Brook Formation.

Fifty metres away from the sulphide-rich horizon in trench 14-04, a 3-metre zone of quartz breccia containing pyrite and arsenopyrite was also discovered. Puma collected three breccia samples that assayed 2.7 grams gold, 1.7 grams gold and 0.85 gram gold.

Except for prospecting, no previous exploration work was conducted on the property, and the nearest historic drill hole is 2.5 km from the initial boulder discovery zone.

Puma is working on a prospecting and trenching program to increase the size of the discovery zone, and the results will be used to map out an exploration program for late 2014 and early 2015.  

The Brunswick North project is 16 km south of another Puma project called Nicholas-Denys, a silver-gold-zinc-lead deposit. Elsewhere in the province, Puma is advancing its Turgeon copper-zinc project. The small exploration company also owns the Little Stull Lake gold project in Manitoba.

From the time it began operating in 1964 until it closed in March 2013, the No. 12 orebody at the Brunswick mine produced 134 million tonnes of ore. The mine’s No. 6 open pit produced another 13 million tonnes. The Brunswick mine has had four owners: Brunswick Mining and Smelting Corp., Noranda, Falconbridge and Xstrata Zinc.

Large massive-sulphide deposits were discovered in the Brunswick area in 1952.

The Bathurst camp has a 70 km diameter and holds 46 mineral deposits, with another hundred mineral occurrences, all hosted by Cambro-Ordovician rocks that were deposited in an ensialic back-arc basin.

News of Puma’s option deal on Brunswick North sent the junior’s shares up 7% to finish at 15¢ per share. Over the last year the company has traded within a range of 13.5¢ to 27¢ per share.