BASE METALS — Exploration heats up in Northwest Territories

Results from a third phase of drilling on the Bowl Zone prospect near Mazenod Lake, about 160 km northwest of Yellowknife, N.W.T., indicate that mineralization continues to the east.

Owner Fortune Minerals (FORM-C) plans to resume drilling after the spring break-up.

The prospect contains a resource estimated at 69.9 million tonnes grading 0.53 gram gold per tonne, 0.07% bismuth, 0.07% cobalt, 0.06% copper and 0.03% tungsten oxide. Preliminary flotation tests indicated recoveries in the range of 80% to 90% for all the metals except tungsten.

Thirteen more holes were drilled in Phase 3, testing the zone along strike to the east. The five holes for which assay results are available indicated additional mineralization, at grades comparable to the resource figures.

.SOther projects

* Fortune is managing exploration on its JBG claim group, northeast of Nico, where GMD Resource (GMD-V) is earning an interest. Fortune recommended further work on the property after an 8-hole drill program in January.

Fortune will also drill GMD’s Treasure Island claim group. The block includes the old Rayrock uranium mine, which was in production for two years in the late 1950s.

* Vancouver-based Corum Resource, which has two properties adjoining GMD’s Treasure Island property and another larger property north of Nico, was also planning ground magnetic work and geological mapping this field season, possibly to be followed by drilling.

* Xemac Resources (XEM-M) and Moss Resources (MRS-T) are each earning a 50% interest in a large claim block linking Nico and Noranda’s (NOR-T) Sue-Dianne property, where the base metal miner drilled off a 9-Million tonne resource grading 0.8% copper in the 1970s. Under new terms of a contract negotiated with the property holder, Australian major WMC International, a clause in the original farm-out agreement that entitled WMC to buy back a 60% interest by reimbursing Moss and Xemac for 80% of their expenditures has been cancelled.

Instead, WMC will receive $100,000 cash and a 1% net smelter return royalty.

The partners have just completed four drill holes on a showing and expect assay results shortly.

* Avalon Ventures (AVL-V) and Starcore Resources (SOE-V) have finished a 1,025-Metre drill program at their Dianne Lake claim group, 20 km north of Nico on the southern boundary of Sue-Dianne.

Avalon, the project operator, tested the Brooke Zone surface showing, encountering copper grades of 0.13% to 0.55% over widths of 0.5 to 15 metres.

The companies also reported “locally elevated” concentrations of silver, gold, molybdenum, cobalt and tungsten, and noted an area of hydrothermally introduced magnetite, epidote and potassium minerals. Bad drilling conditions forced Avalon to abandon two other holes about 500 metres north of the showing, where an induced-polarization anomaly had been detected in 1996.

The mineralization was found in a unit of fragmental volcanic rocks that dips gently eastward, and appears to thicken to the east as well. The companies judge the metal levels at Brooke to be typical of grades found near the fringes of an Olympic Dam-style breccia system, and believe that an area 1 km east of the drilling, which shows high magnetic and gravity values and high chargeability, could represent buried mineralization downdip from the surface showing.

Once the ice is off the lakes, Avalon will conduct ground geophysics over areas singled out in last year’s airborne geophysical surveys. At Bea Lake, on the northern boundary of the Nico claims, Fortune is spending $120,000 in an attempt to investigate an anomaly found in airborne radiometric and magnetic surveys and in reconnaissance gravity surveys. Grab samples taken when the anomaly was ground-Checked ran as high as 0.76% copper and 0.2 gram gold per tonne.

* Hawkeye Gold (HAW-V) has geological mapping and ground geophysics slated for mid-June, guided by results from last year’s airborne geophysical surveys and by a satellite imagery study to map out large-scale structural features.

Hawkeye is expecting to have drill permits by the end of July.

The company has two land packages: the Tri-Reba groups, east of Nico, and the Mo groups, 15 km north of the Nico discovery.

At Tri-Reba a surface showing, previously investigated only as a uranium target, returned base metal values in the 1% range, and a number of anomalies detected in last year’s airborne surveys are the principal targets. On Mo, the company will be field-Checking magnetic and radiometric anomalies.

* Aquaterre Mineral Development (AQT-V) is also expected to be active this season, having taken an option to earn a half interest in a property owned by Gregor Goldfields (GGLD-C) at the southern end of Mazenod Lake.

* Noront Resources (NOT-V) will be prospecting and examining geophysical anomalies at its Sherman Lake claim group, east of the Rayrock mine, and at its Crowfoot Lake claims, near Fortune’s JBG block.