Teck hits nickel in Labrador — High grades found south of Voisey’s Bay

Teck (TEK-T) has hit a narrow, yet rich, nickel-copper cobalt intersection on a Labrador property shared equally by Donner Resources (DRZ-V) and Northern Abitibi Mining (NAI-A).

The property is roughly 100 km south of the Voisey’s Bay project of Inco.

Teck, which owns 12.2% of Donner, can acquire up to half of Donner’s interest in any part of the vast (roughly 35-by-40-km) South Voisey’s Bay project that comes to fruition.

Ownership of the various parts of the South Voisey’s Bay project is defined by 17 separate agreements between Donner and a host of junior exploration companies, including Northern Abitibi.

Teck recently hit a 1.1-metre-wide massive sulphide intersection in hole 75, which ran 11.75% nickel, 9.7% copper and 0.43% cobalt. The mineralization was 176.8 metres downhole.

Apart from the Voisey’s Bay project drilling by Diamond Fields Resources and Inco, this is the first time any drill intersection in Labrador has topped 2% nickel. Fingertip-sized areas of pentlandite (an important nickel ore mineral) are clearly visible in the core.

Check assays, along with assays for platinum group metals and gold, are in the works.

The discovery comes hot on the heels of hole 67 (T.N.M., Oct. 13/97), in which three separate narrow zones of massive sulphides between 176.2 and 180.4 metres downhole were found in a 22.5-metre-wide zone of disseminated mineralization. The mineralization is similar in appearance to that found at Voisey’s Bay.

The first of the mineralized intervals in hole 67 averaged 1.73% nickel, 1.64% copper and 0.23% cobalt over 0.3 metre; the second averaged 1.93% nickel, 1.07% copper and 0.26% cobalt over 0.6 metre; and the third averaged 1.35% nickel, 0.64% copper and 0.17% cobalt over 0.1 metre.

Holes 67 and 75 are on ground shared equally by Donner

“We’re really on to something here,” said Teck Vice-President Barry Simmons, referring to the two holes. Speaking to a group of analysts and stakeholders gathered in Toronto recently, Simmons said it was the most impressive nickel- copper-cobalt intersection he had seen in his 20-plus years in the base metal exploration business.

By comparison, the bulk of the intersections at Voisey’s Bay Ovoid zone ran 3-4% nickel, 2-3% copper and 0.15% cobalt, though interval widths ran into the hundreds of metres.

Promising factors

Despite the small size of the South Voisey’s Bay intervals, Simmons said Teck is “very keen on the potential here.”

He pointed to several geological factors that make the find promising: * Like Voisey’s Bay, the mineralization lies along the suture zone dividing the Nain and Churchill geological provinces, widely thought to be associated with the sourcing of metal-rich fluids from the mantle.

* The geology of the area now being drilled now consists of a mafic-to-ultramafic, layered, intrusive complex akin to the Reid Brook intrusion at Voisey’s Bay.

* “Leopard” troctolite, similar to that found at Voisey’s Bay, is present in the South Voisey’s Bay holes.

* Breccias similar to the footwall breccias in several nickel- copper mines in the Sudbury camp have been found.

Most importantly, said Simmons, “We have proven that you can have mineralized solutions associated with this layered complex.

“The right juices are kicking around here, with the right metals.” Holes 67 and 75 lie on the flank of a large north-northeast-trending gravity anomaly that has been interpreted as a possible trough or depression on the olivine gabbro intrusion. Several other holes in the vicinity, which have not yet been assayed, also intersected a gabbroic/troctolitic sequence containing variable amounts of sulphide mineralization. And on a wider scale, Simmons said, “There are some very nice-looking untested areas that we have to have a look at.”

Teck plans to complete at least 7,100 metres of drilling before Christmas, in holes averaging 300 metres in depth. Many of the drill targets are on gravity highs.

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Gravity anomaly

Two drills are now turning on the Donner-Northern Abitibi ground, while another is testing a gravity anomaly roughly 30 km southeast on a property held 62.5% by Donner and 37.5% by Cyprus Minerals (CYP-V).

Cautioning that drilling of all targets may take years, Simmons noted that the total area of the South Voisey’s Bay project is 60% of the size of the entire Sudbury mining camp, where exploration has continued relatively unabated since the 1880s, and discoveries are still being made.

Meanwhile, just east of Voisey’s Bay, the VBE-1 project of Columbia Yukon Resources (CYR-A), International CanAlaska Resources (ICA-V) and Falconbridge (FL-T) continues to show only a hint of potential.

Drill hole 7 hit a 7.2-metre section with intervals of semi-massive pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite mineralization between 754.6 and 761.8 metres downhole. Also intersected, between 775.7 and 778.3 metres, were a further 2.6-metre interval with 5-10% sulphides overall and several small pods of pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite assaying between 0.1% and 0.28% nickel.

Assays are pending for three massive sulphide (pyrrhotite and chalcopyrite) intervals encountered between 840 and 885.7 metres downhole. The hole is now down below 1,043 metres; its target depth is roughly 1,500 metres.

The deep drilling on the VBE-1 property is designed to locate potential eastern extensions of the massive sulphide mineralization found in the Eastern Deeps deposit at Inco’s Voisey’s Bay project.

An option agreement among Columbia Yukon, CanAlaska and Falconbridge calls for each company to contribute equally to a $3.3-million exploration program on VBE-1 in 1997. Beginning in 1998, Falconbridge can elect to earn a 25% interest in the property by spending $22 million over three years. It can raise its interest to 51% by delivering a bankable feasibility study and to 60% by advancing the property to commercial production.