Deep shaft on Lindsley Falco near-term option

Shaft sinking and underground exploration could begin within a year on Falconbridge Ltd.’s Lindsley property, chief project geologist David Comba tells The Northern Miner. Timing of the program “depends on how lucky we get with the next series of holes,” he adds.

Located in Blezard Twp., near Sudbury, Ont., Falconbridge is employing six drill rigs in an effort to partially delineate a new base and precious metals discovery of impressive richness. Initial intersections from a deep hole, B-51, which cut massive sulphides at depths to 4,599 ft, suggests the ore is up to three times richer than that currently being mined by Falconbridge’s five mines in the Sudbury Basin.

The hole cut six sections all of which assayed strong gold, silver, platinum and palladium values, in addition to nickel and copper. These include 25.2 ft of 0.77% nickel, 2.6% copper, 0.02 oz gold, 0.34 oz silver, 0.08 oz platinum and 0.08 oz palladium per ton. Another narrower 7.9-ft section assayed 1.33% nickel, 13.4% copper, 0.24 oz gold, 1.2 oz silver, 0.04 oz platinum and 0.04 oz palladium per ton.

The widest section was 33.4 ft grading 1.9% nickel, 3.1% copper, 0.01 oz gold, 0.58 oz silver, 0.11 oz platinum and 0.21 oz palladium per ton.

The best results came from wedged hole B-51B located 200 ft west of hole B-51. The wedge intersected 255.5 ft grading 2.3% nickel, 4.4% copper, 0.12% cobalt, 0.44 oz silver, 0.07 oz gold, 0.08 oz platinum and 0.27 oz palladium per ton. At current commodity prices, that section represents approximately $385 per ton, The Northern Miner calculates.

“At Sudbury, we mine $100-per- ton ore,” Falconbridge chairman and president William James, says. “If we recover $300 per ton, we could make a little money on this one.” He also notes that with $180 million in cash, Falconbridge is well funded to mount a deep shaft sinking and exploration program in the near future.

The current drill program, which is testing the zone at 200-ft spacings, is expected to be completed within 6-18 months, Mr Comba says, depending on the quality of results generated by the work.

Exploration on the Lindsley property is not something new, Mr Comba emphasized. For more than 100 years, prospectors and companies, both Falconbri dge and Sudbury competitor Inco Ltd., have examined the claims. In the 1960s Falconbridge sank a small 311-ft shaft to test some surface showings. Also the Mount Nickel deposit, hosting one million tons grading both 1% copper and nickel, was mined out in the 1950s.

However, work at Falconbridge’s Strathcona mine on the north range of Sudbury Basin, suggested that the footwall stratigraphy became enriched with precious metals. “That geology was our target at Lindsley,” Mr Comba explains. The Lindsley property is located in the southern range of the basin and approximately one kilometre northeast of Inco’s Little Stobie mine.

Discovery hole B-51 was actually started in 1986 as a follow-up to previously drilled holes which encountered encouraging results. This year, the company decided to deepen hole B-51 and hit mineralization below 4,000 ft.