Central Crude’s new concept at Moss Lake sparks scramble

Evidence is building that a large- tonnage, low-grade, open pit gold- copper-silver deposit may be shaping at the Moss Lake project of Central Crude (TSE) in the Shebandowan area, 70 miles west of Thunder Bay, Ont. Little wonder the company’s president, Richard Nemis, told shareholders “it has us excited” (T.N.M., May 21/90). With an initial $2 million put up by its largest shareholder, Hemlo Gold (TSE), for a major new drill program under the watchful operating eye of Noranda Exploration, this is quickly attracting attention in mining circles, with a scramble for ground in that area now under way, observes The Northern Miner.

“This is something new — and different,” says geologist Garth Pearce, Noranda’s divisional manager at Thunder Bay.

“By putting up that kind of money at this stage, you really must like the chances,” we said to John Harvey, Hemlo’s president and chief executive officer and president of Noranda Exploration. “I guess you could say that,” he replied, adding “we had to before someone else did.” (This is the man who moved quickly after the Hemlo discovery in a tough deal that gave Noranda its prized Golden Giant mine.)

“We really don’t know yet just what we are looking at,” says Bruce Mackie, Noranda’s district geologist, pointing out that exploring for a new style of mineralization in the Archean is relatively new. Most work in this area has been seeking lode deposits.

This new development, of course, looms important for both Tandem Resources (ME) and Storimin Exploration (ASE), the two junior vendor companies headed by S.G. Hawkins and A.E. Storey respectively. They spent a lot of money on an underground program that was only moderately successful.

But they did go back a second time with some further exploratory drilling well to the east of the underground workings. That led to this new discovery and concept. Although they, too, were excited, they ran out of funds to follow up on their discovery, turning it over to the Central Crude-Hemlo team which carried out a $650,000 follow-up drill program this past winter.

That work, coupled with a re- examination of previous drilling and reassaying of some of the old core, has proved quite productive. For using the more costly total metallics method (three times more expensive than fire assays), this is not only upgrading the gold content by about one third, it is also revealing a significant copper content not previously assayed for.

Central Crude now reports preliminary reserves of two million tons in five zones grading 0.17 oz. gold within a wide, low-grade gold halo. This excludes the new east zone on which very limited drilling has as yet been done. That could probably add another million tons or so with detailed drilling. This is in a relatively new and highly altered sericitic formation that seems more hospitable to gold.

No drilling has been done within 2,000 ft. of the neighboring Inco boundary, a 32-claim group on which Crude now has an agreement in principle under which it can earn a 50% interest. The nearest hole, No. 90-19l, shows a 416.7-ft. section running 0.033 oz. gold by fire assay, including 32.8 ft. of 0.12 oz. by fire assay and 0.17 oz. by the metallic method.

Affording further protection, it has also optioned ground from a private American company adjoining the Inco group on both north and south on which limited drilling has returned wide sections of low- grade copper.

As the operator for Central Crude, Noranda is now putting up permanent camps and will likely resume drilling shortly.

Noranda, which maintains quite an exploration headquarters in Thunder Bay, has been working quietly in the Shebandowan area for some time. It has been carrying out a detailed regional geological survey and extensive geophysical work, assembling a broad data base. From this, it has been acquiring quite a bit of ground, including an option on the Coldstream property, a former copper producer several miles southwest of the Moss Lake project owned by Conwest Exploration (TSE) and Freewest Resources (ME) on which it has been drilling for gold.