Junior
Situated 160 km south of Baker Lake, the 23,200-ha property comprises three claims and one prospecting permit. The Vancouver-based junior can earn a 100% interest in the property by paying $75,000 to the vendor, Ferguson Lake Syndicate, and issuing a total of 4.25 million performance shares. The shares are distributed at the rate of one share for each 40 cents of expenditures on the property.
Starfield is required to spend $500,000 on the property by year-end and a further $1.2 million if it receives an engineering report that recommends a second phase of work. The deal is subject to a 3% net smelter return royalty (NSR).
The property is accessible by float plane or helicopter from either Baker Lake or Rankin Inlet. There is also an airstrip on a large island on Ferguson Lake capable of handling wheeled aircraft.
In the 1950s, a subsidiary of
Inco took the property to a full mining lease in 1957 and held it in inventory until 1992. In 1953, Esso Minerals Canada optioned the property and extracted a 10-tonne bulk sample from the Main zone for sulpher content tests. However, little information about the results is available.
In the mid-1980s, additional surface work by
The mineralization is hosted in westerly trending, northerly dipping, hornblendite units that are conformable with the enclosing Archean-aged, hornblende-rich gneisses. The principal mineralized unit measured between 50 and 200 metres thick and has been traced east and west of Ferguson Lake over a strike length of 9 km.
Previous exploration was directed toward three contiguous mineralized zones in the 9-km strike length of the hornblendite unit. Starfield states that two of these zones, the Main Zones East and West, are intermittently exposed east and west of Ferguson Lake. The third zone is beneath the lake. The estimated resource is based on only 730 metres of strike length situated west of the lake (Main Zone West) and remains open to depth and along strike.
Inco drilled a stepout hole, on trend, about 4 km east of the resource, which returned an intersection that averaged 1.28% nickel and 1.08% copper over 23 metres.
Suphide minerals within the unit consist of pyrrhotite, pyrite and chalcopyrite. They occur as massive pods, lenses, stringers and veinlets. Prominent gossans, which measure up to 25 metres wide and several hundred metres long, are said to be associated with the sulphide-rich zones.
Work performed by the Ferguson Lake Syndicate in 1998 increased the PGM potential of the property. Several new zones of mineralization were discovered, and exploration extended the Main zone farther west. Grab samples at the West-Zone-South returned values as high as 1.17 grams platinum and 4.5 grams palladium. At the Main Zone West, values hit 0.31 gram platinum and 2.23 grams palladium, while at the Main Zone East, they were 0.9 gram platinum and 1.8 grams palladium.
Starfield is mobilizing fuel and supplies to a fully winterized camp on the property. The company has signed a drilling contract with Midwest Drilling, and equipment is en route.
Exploration will begin with a 100-line-km geophysical survey over the known ultramafic complex. A magnetometer survey will explore to depths of 300 to 400 metres, traversing across the existing defined resource. The resulting geophysical signature will aid in identifying drill targets along other portions of the ultramafic body.
A 1,200-metre program of preliminary drilling will follow the magnetometer survey. The purpose of the drilling is to confirm drill results from the 1950s, as well as test new targets defined by the modern geophysical survey.
Starfield recently completed a $750,000 private placement financing, the proceeds of which will be used to finance this year’s exploration.
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