Freewest strips sulphides at Sungold

A massive sulphide discovery by Freewest Resources (FWR-V) has revived interest in the Shebandowan area of northwestern Ontario, which is better-known for gold and nickel.

Freewest’s discovery came in a follow-up electromagnetic (EM) survey using a GDD “Beep Mat” to ground-check a conductor located by airborne time-domain EM immediately southwest of Red Fox Lake on Freewest’s Sungold property. Sungold, about 120 km west of Thunder Bay, is a 86-sq.-km property covering a felsic volcanic sequence at the western end of the Shebandowan greenstone belt.

Stripping in five locations along a 720-metre strike length exposed massive copper-zinc sulphide mineralization in the trench farthest northeast, and disseminated and stringer-style sulphides in the other four trenches.

The massive mineralization in the first trench returned grades of 10-32.8% zinc with variable amounts of copper — as low as 0.25% in the sample with the highest zinc grade and as high as 12.5% in the sample with 10% zinc. The massive sulphides were fine-grained pyrite, pyrrhotite and sphalerite, with some chalcopyrite.

One sample of semi-massive sulphides in rhyolite returned grades of 7.3% zinc and 3.1% copper, while chloritized and silicified rhyolite with disseminated sulphides showed relatively low zinc grades of around 0.5% and copper grades of 2.6% and 2.8%.

The rocks exposed in the other four trenches were mainly altered rhyolite, again chloritized and silicified. Two trenches also exposed some cherty rhyolitic material, interpreted to be an exhalite.

Zinc grades, except in the most southwestern trench, ranged from 2.3% to 9.6%, generally with low copper contents. Still, two samples of highly chloritized rhyolite ran 9.6% zinc with 2% copper, and 2.3% zinc with 2.8% copper. At the southwestern end of the prospect, two samples of chloritized rhyolite ran 2.4% and 1.1% copper with negligible zinc.

The occurrence is still open at either end but has not been drilled.

Freewest has staked ground southwest of the discovery, tying on to its own property, and covering the strike extension of the volcanic rocks and several known EM conductors located by government-sponsored airborne surveys in the early 1990s. The company plans to carry out ground geophysical surveys and additional trenching on the discovery.

Joint-venture partners East West Resource (EWR-V) and Maple Minerals (MPM-V) control the ground northeast of the Sungold property, while Pele Mountain Resources (GEM-V) and Moss Lake Gold Mines (MOK-V) have large land packages northeast of East West and Maple, mainly covering gold occurrences in the mafic volcanic rocks of the belt. Shebandowan prospector Joe Hackl and another syndicate hold small claims in the Freewest land package.

Pele holds the Ardeen mine, which produced 30,000 oz. gold at various times between 1871 and 1935.

Moss Lake holds the Moss Lake gold deposit, which has a resource of 60 million tonnes grading 1.1 grams gold per tonne, based on work done before National Instrument 43-101. The company regards the figure as an indicated resource under current practice.

Moss Lake drilled eight holes in the latter part of 2004 in the Fountain Lake area, about 3 km southwest of the Moss Lake deposit. The holes, drilled to follow up on mineralized intersections the company had drilled in 2003, tested targets outlined in an induced-polarization survey.

Moss Lake labelled the results “disappointing,” though six of the holes intersected some gold mineralization in two structures: the North and South zones. Grades mainly fell in the 1-to-3-gram range over core lengths of 1-1.5 metres. One hole near the western end of the prospect intersected 11.6 metres grading 1.5 grams gold per tonne in the North zone and 8.3 metres grading 1.1 grams in the South zone.