JQA prospect shapes up for Canarc (September 29, 2003)

An 8-hole drilling program by Canarc Resource (CCM-T) at its Benzdorp property in east-central Suriname has defined a porphyry-style mineralized zone at the JQA gold prospect.

JQA, one of a group of geochemical anomalies outlined in earlier soil surveys, was drilled this field season following a trenching program in late 2002. The gold mineralization appears to be a porphyry-type occurrence in diorite host rock.

All eight holes in the current drill campaign intersected low-grade gold mineralization at shallow depths. In general, the holes were mineralized for their entire lengths, ranging from 44 to 113 metres. Most of the holes were 70 to 80 metres long, testing to a vertical depth of about 50 metres.

Grades were low but remarkably consistent down each hole. Average grades were mainly in the 0.5-0.6 gram-per-tonne range, with the best drill holes running 0.69 gram gold over 44.2 metres in hole BZ03-7 and 0.64 gram over 113.4 metres in BZ03-4. Copper analyses of the same samples are pending.

Much of the material the drill holes encountered was saprolite (deeply weathered rock) which allowed only poor core recovery. Hole 7, for example, had to be abandoned after 44 metres owing to poor ground conditions.

Canarc geologists believe that gold grades estimated by drill sampling may be lower than the real grades in the rock. Core recoveries are poorest in the most strongly mineralized parts of the saprolite, which are friable because of their stockwork structure; the result may be that strongly mineralized material may be lost from the core at a greater rate than other rock. (Bulk sampling would confirm whether that is the case.)

The gold is mainly carried in quartz-carbonate vein stockworks. Unweathered host rock carries show potassic alteration zones and disseminations of pyrite, magnetite and chalcopyrite in diorite around the stockworks. The potassic alteration grades outwards into phyllic (sericitized) and argillic (clay-altered) zones.

The JQA geochemical anomaly, defined by a zone of soils carrying gold concentrations over 0.25 grams per tonne, is about 1.5 km long and about 600 metres across at its widest point.