Three successful projects have Muscocho hustling

Three gold exploration projects on which Muscocho Explorations is acting as operator are returning values that make each one of them look a cinch to carry on to the further phases of development.

In fact, President Terrence Flanagan anticipates making a production decision on one of the projects, the Magino, as early as April and having a 400-ton-per-day mill turning over by September.

“That’s not a tight schedule for us,” says Mr Flanagan. Its operating mine west of Quebec City was set up under an even tighter time frame.

Another project, the Magnacon or Mishibishu Lake joint venture, could go into production as early as the first quarter of 1988 if current work is successful.

On the Magino project northeast of Wawa, Ont., a 50-50 joint venture of Muscocho and McNellen Resources, drill-indicated reserves have nearly doubled to 1,962,645 tons averaging 0.251 oz gold per ton based on a cutoff grade of 0.20 oz. That makes this property almost a sure bet to become a mine.

And, on the Mishibishu Lake joint venture, 40 miles west of Wawa, where Muscocho and Windarra have 25% interests and Flanagan McAdam has a 50% interest, a crosscut has intersected the main gold-bearing zone 300 ft below surface. Two sets of channel samples taken across the vein on the west wall of the 13-ft wide crosscut averaged 0.659 oz over a true width of 7.6 ft and corresponding samples from the east wall averaged 0.581 oz across 9.95 ft.

On the Gwillim Lake property near Chibougamau in northwestern Quebec, Flanagan McAdam Resources and Muscocho each have a 43.3% interest and Noranda Exploration has a 13.3% working interest and a 20% net profits interest. Drilling has traced a gold- bearing zone for a length of 500 ft and to a depth of 450 ft carrying an uncut grade of 0.45 oz over an average width of 9.5 ft or, with all high values cut to one ounce, a grade of 0.21 oz.

When added to Muscocho’s two operating mines west of Quebec City, staff at Muscocho have to hustle to keep on top of all their projects.

On the Magino property, indicated reserves as recently as last October were just over one million tons grading 0.25 oz. The major part of the increased tonnage is attributed to the northeast and the north zones where combined reserves are estimated at 859,809 tons averging 0.254 oz.

Recent drilling has featured results from the new North zone which has now been defined for a length of 1,400 ft with the zone open to the west and down dip. Muscocho says the zone offers the important potential for making a major-sized stope of better than mine average grade.

Drill intersections on the zone include one that averaged 0.251 oz over 74 ft starting at 137 ft in the hole. Another hole, 200 ft to the west, averaged 0.252 oz over 50 ft beginning at 311 ft. A third averaged 0.25 oz over 31.5 ft beginning at 271 ft.

Following completion of a 10×16-ft decline ramp completed in 1986, a 700-ft crosscut was taken across the host granodiorite zone at the 200-ft horizon and a series of drifts started. The most advanced drift gave an average grade of 0.298 oz over 8 ft from 14 faces representing 120 ft of advance.

The present program consists of underground drifting, surface drilling and underground drilling. One recent underground hole returned 12.1 ft grading 1.96 oz while a second ran 11.9 ft grading 1.255 oz followed by 25 ft grading 0.959 oz.

On the Mishibishu Lake joint venture property Muscocho says mineralization extends for a considerable distance into the host rocks on the south or footwall side of the vein. When that material is included, the over-all average is 0.264 oz across 29.45 ft in the west wall of the crosscut and 0.265 oz over 28.1 the west wall.

Drifts are being driven both east and west on the vein and so far have advanced 85 ft in each direction from the crosscut. Visible gold is reported in several places in both drifts’ headings.

Underground drilling to detail the deposit has started with the first hole from the ramp completed. It intersected the main gold zone 50 ft east of the crosscut and 50 ft higher with visible gold reported in the vein. Assays have not been received yet.

At Gwillim Lake the gold- bearing zone occurs along an IP anomaly which has a minimum length of 3,000 ft. A second zone on this same anomaly, intersected in seven of the holes, has a grade of 0.177 oz over an average width of 5.2 ft.

Other gold-bearing sections are present and the number of gold intersections grading better than 0.1 oz over a minimum of 1.5 ft varies between three and nine in each hole.

A second IP anomaly 1,000 ft north of this zone has a strike length of 4,300 ft. A diamond drill hole on this zone cut three gold-bearing zones averaging 0.191 oz over 4.26 ft, 0.073 oz over 5 ft and 0.122 oz over 5.25 ft.