Newmont Mining (NEM-N) has agreed to acquire up to a 75% stake in Wolfden Resources‘ (YWO-V) Skinner gold property in Ontario’s Red Lake mining district.
Newmont can initially earn a 65% interest in the property by spending $700,000 on exploration by the end of 2006 and making annual cash payments to the property vendor. Newmont can up its stake by 10% by spending an additional $400,000 by the end of 2007.
In late 2001, Wolfden signed an agreement to acquire the 20.3-sq.-km property by paying $95,000 in cash and issuing 100,000 shares over three years. The property is subject to a 2% net smelter return royalty.
Skinner covers the Balmer assemblage of volcanic rocks, which also hosts the Campbell mine of Placer Dome (PDG-T) and the Red Lake mine of Goldcorp (PDG-T).
Basal till sampling by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) in the early 1990s located a significant gold anomaly extending down-ice from the Skinner property. Six samples taken 1 km apart contained 13-60 grains of visible gold and graded 1.2-2.7 grams per tonne. Individual till samples up-ice of the GSC samples returned up to 81 grains of visible gold from samples weighing 7-10 kg. Assay results ran as high as 79.8 grams gold per tonne.
Also, sampling up-ice, toward magnetic anomalies at or near the Balmer/Confederation assemblage boundary, turned up delicately shaped gold grains, indicating a local source. The best sample — 81 mostly pristine gold grains — was taken in an area just 400 metres south of a 5-km-long magnetic anomaly coincident with a swamp. The area has not been subjected to any geophysical surveying or drilling.
Wolfden recently staked an additional 4.9-sq.-km claim block south of the Skinner property.
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