EDITORIAL PAGE — Active in exploration

Not a bad start to the year for mining exploration, wouldn’t you say?

The diamond hunt continues with sparkling enthusiasm across Canada, parts of the U.S. and overseas in Africa, and a staking rush

involving Canadian players in Venezuela grabs the headlines. Throw in the odd grassroots discovery or developing project in Canada and the activity makes one wonder what the fuss about mining’s supposed decline is all about!

The kimberlite stampede ignited by the Dia Met-BHP discovery in the Northwest Territories has grown so much that exploration for diamonds is now ongoing in at least five provinces: Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec. In Quebec, the search has spread from near the Ontario border and the James Bay Lowlands to the Abitibi region’s Le Tac Twp. and to the Montreal area. Even in the Northwest Territories, the diamond hunt has expanded far to the east, to the Dubawnt Lake area.

The ensuing news should only get better. New drill programs, based on information from the lab results of last year’s geochemical samples and geophysical and indicator-mineral analysis, should soon be under way. Announcements of new bulk-sampling programs should also spur investor interest.

Not to be outdone, gold has caught investors’ attention. Specifically, a district in Venezuela known as Kilometre 88 has attracted both seniors and juniors. Front and centre at the moment, while keeping its comments about its Las Cristinas discovery to itself, is Placer Dome. Other seniors reported to be trying to get in on the action include Cambior, Echo Bay, Lac Minerals, Pegasus and Teck.

Cambior, operator of the new Omai gold mine in neighboring Guyana, would be a natural for the district. Kilometre 88 is situated, as is Omai, on the Guiana Shield, which stretches from Venezuela — through Guyana — to Suriname. The gold deposits of Kilometre 88 are described as being typical of the Guiana Shield; that is, they are highly weathered laterites and saprolites overlying a greenstone belt.

Geological work undertaken in the district is said to be relatively light, past mining codes almost guaranteeing the area would never be in the spotlight. A more enlightened Venezuelan government has now opened the district to foreign mining concerns, after moving out the garimpeiros who, in the last decade, recovered more than a bagful of gold through their crude surface mining methods.

As seems to be the practice these days, an exciting mineral find has to have a legal dispute, and Kilometre 88 does not disappoint in this regard. Canadian juniors are involved in ownership problems surrounding the Oro Uno concession.

Back home again, analysts are talking of a gold find at Goose Lake in the Northwest Territories, some 120 miles northeast of the Lac de Gras diamond play. Stories are circulating that project partners Homestake and Kerr McGee uncovered the potential deposit last summer; much more work remains to be done to prove up reserves.

And at the Red Mountain gold property in British Columbia, Lac says it will follow up an 11-hole program in 1992 with 40,000 ft. of surface drilling to confirm and extend the Marc and AV zones and test other targets. Underground work leading to bulk-sampling is also planned.

A slowdown in mining exploration? You may not find anyone who would believe such a story.