Score for Alotta Nickel copper find drawing interest

After 35,000 ft of exploratory drilling and an expenditure of close to $1.5 million (via flow-through financing) in the search for copper-nickel deposits in the Lac Simard area of northwestern Quebec, Alotta Resources (VSE) has finally come up with a massive sulphide discovery that has excited its management. The shares advanced sharply in hectic trading this past week.

Best section in the limited drilling completed to date on the find is in hole No 3, a vertical boring showing 115 ft of massive sulphides from 82-197 ft averaging 1.55% nickel and 1.76% copper, together with low cobalt and zinc values. This includes a 50-ft section from 138-188 ft grading 2.35% nickel and 2.19% copper.

“We haven’t got a handle on it yet, but our hopes are high,” Geologist F. D. Corman told The Northern Miner from the Val d’Or office of the Applegath Group of companies with which he is intimately associated. “We won’t know the strike and dip or the true width of the intercept until further holes are drilled.”

But these answers should come rather quickly, with two drills now working on the discovery zone itself, and a third being put to work to probe other nearby geophysical targets.

This particular conductor zone is 800 ft long, lying along a gabbro- porphyry contact which can be traced for about 2,000 ft. Plans are to drill this off at 100-ft intervals.

Actually three shallow holes were put down from the initial setup, at –45 degrees, –70 degrees and –90 degrees respectively. The 45 degrees boring intersected massive to disseminated sulphides from 67-76 ft that ran 1.61% nickel and 1.35% copper. No 2, the 70 degrees hole, returned a l2.5-ft section from 66- 78.5 ft. assaying 0.78% nickel, 4.51% copper, 0.08% zinc and 0.07% cobalt.

A shallow hole 100 ft south of the discovery setup failed to pick up the zone, while a hole to the north shows narrow bands of sulphides with copper.

At presstime a drill was being set up behind hole No 3 for a deeper probe.

The property, which is in Baby Twp., was optioned for a cash consideration and 100,000 shares of Alotta stock and calls for a 3% net smelter royalty. It lies 15 miles northwest of the Lorraine mine, a former McIntyre producer that yielded some 500,000 tons of good grade copper-nickel ore. And it’s about 45 miles from McIntyre’s former Belleterre gold mine that turned out 2,396,992 tons of ore averaging 0.31 oz.

Alotta has now staked and optioned considerably more ground covering the known favorable gabbro formations, with holdings now totalling some 320 claims. And staking in that area continues.

Leading up to the current discovery was the finding of a copper- nickel float late last fall that assayed 1.6% copper and 2.3% nickel. This was followed by a geophysical survey after freezeup which led to a narrow surface showing that assayed 11.60% copper, 0.07% nickel, 0.32 oz silver and 0.02 oz palladium which is likely part of the zone now being drilled.

Reginald McFarlane is project manager working under Donald Cross, exploration manager for the Applegath Group of companies. Dr Jean Descarreaux is consulting geologist.

The Alotta company is capitalized at 15,000,000 shares of which 10,920,9l2 are issued. Tundra Gold Mines (VSE), one of the members of this group, owns 1,050,000 shares.