First McAra holes find stringer sulphides

Three drill holes at the McAra property in the southern Abitibi belt in Ontario have intersected stringer-form pyrite and pyrrhotite.

Owner Mustang Minerals (YMU-V) is testing a series of drill targets along a 400-metre-long conductive body discovered in an electromagnetic survey. Follow-up ground EM and induced-polarization (IP) surveys defined a conductive and chargeable zone suggestive of base-metal sulphide mineralization.

The first three holes drilled on the conductor intersected disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite, with some chalcopyrite, sphalerite and galena, in metasedimentary rocks. Locally the sulphide minerals were in stringers or semi-massive bodies.

Backhoe stripping by prospectors had unearthed a 30-by-20-metre surface showing with disseminated-to-semi-massive-sulphide mineralization. Chip samples from a 9-metre trench opened up by the prospectors returned an average of 2.15% copper, 1.08% zinc, 0.72% lead and 34 grams silver per tonne. Later sampling of part of the trench by a Mustang Minerals crew returned copper grades ranging from 2% to 10%, with 23-173 grams silver per tonne, plus low zinc and lead values and traces of cobalt.

The three holes were drilled to test shallow downdip extensions of the surface showing. Hole 1 cut 29.5 metres of sulphide mineralization, and hole 2 cut 21.4 metres. The three holes represent 161 metres of a planned 2,000-metre drill program on the zone. Assay results on the drill core are pending.

Two targets are to be tested. The first is an EM conductor with a coincident IP anomaly down-plunge and south of the surface showing. The second is 200 metres to the northeast and is an area of high-chargeability and low-resistivity found in the IP survey.

The McAra area, in Dufferin and North Williams Twps., between Timmins and Sudbury, is underlain by an inlier of Archean-age Abitibi greenstones surrounded by younger Huronian sedimentary rocks. The conductive body runs beneath a strip of argillic sediments interlayered with mafic Abitibi volcanic rocks.

Mustang took an option on the property in November from the prospecting group and can earn a 100% interest, subject to a net smelter return royalty, by spending $1 million over five years. The optionors also get $300,000 cash and 600,000 shares over the option period.

Mustang and affiliate JML Resources (JJJ-V) are in a 50-50 joint venture on an adjoining property in North Williams Twp., McAra North, where three other conductors have been outlined.