EXPLORATION ’95 — New type of gold in Canadian Shield

A gold occurrence in metasedimentary rocks at Greywacke Lake in Saskatchewan’s La Ronge district bears many similarities to Tarkwa and other important gold deposits in West Africa.

This is the conclusion of a group of scientists from the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC), working in collaboration with Cameco (TSE). It is the first such mineralization to be identified in the Canadian Shield, and it serves as an indication that previously ignored sedimentary belts are prospective for gold.

For much of this century, quartz veins have been the main source of gold ore in Canada, mostly because they were easy to find as a result of their obvious contact with their host rocks.

But the GSC maintains that since the discovery in 1981 of the Hemlo deposits in Ontario, geologists have become increasingly interested in deposits where quartz veins were not the controlling factor, and where gold is subtly disseminated in volcanic and sedimentary rock.