Thunderwood draws a full house

With standing room only at the recent annual meeting of Thunderwood Resources (TSE), President and CEO John Heslop would have been hard pressed to review any more than the three projects that have been the main focus of activity over the last year.

This well-heeled and dynamic exploration company has 28 mineral properties in its portfolio and surface or underground programs were conducted on 12 of these in 1990. The cost of this exploratory work totalled about $4.8 million in 1990.

The three largest programs were responsible for 87% of the above expenditure: Pelletier Lake, Scott Lake and Gold Hawk. Work continues at all three locations in 1991.

Pelletier Lake is a gold property two miles south of Rouyn-Noranda, Que. It is within the same stratigraphic horizon that sustained the Stadacona mine from 1936 until 1958 where slightly more than 3 million tons were mined at a grade of 0.15 oz. gold per ton. Surface drilling started at Pelletier Lake in 1987, delineating a new gold deposit not far from the Stadacona mine.

Preliminary reserves are quoted at an undiluted 937,000 tons grading 0.20 oz. An underground program, started up last November to further investigate the zone, was completed in June. It included more than 3,300 ft. of ramping, 1,000 ft. of drifting/raising and a limited amount of diamond drilling. A 10,000-ton bulk sample was mined for metallurgical test work and for commercial milling.

Thunderwood was a 35% owner of the Pelletier project prior to the underground program, with Falconbridge owning the balance. On Thunderwood committing itself to the $3.5-million underground program, the company acquired the right to become operator and also the right to increase its interest to 54%.

The scope of the underground program will be expanded and work resumed if results prove to be satisfactory.

The second most significant expenditure of 1990 was made on the Scott Lake property. This is primarily a zinc prospect about 12 miles west of Chibougamau, Que. Work continues and $500,000 is expected to be spent during the current year; Greenstone Resources (TSE) is a 50% participant in the project.

The property hosts preliminary reserves of 777,000 tons grading 6.87% zinc, 0.41% copper and 0.34 oz. silver per ton. Current interest is centred 4,000 ft. to the west of this deposit and a number of drill holes have intersected substantial thicknesses of stringer type mineralization carrying low-to-moderate values in zinc, copper and silver. A typical intersection was cored in hole SL-91-85A and registered a width of 99.7 ft. assaying 1.64% zinc, 0.16% copper and 0.02 oz. silver.

Substantially higher-grade sections are found within the wide zones but over correspondingly shorter core lengths. The majority of intersections are at drill hole depths from 2,000-3,000 ft.

Thunderwood’s number three project is the Gold Hawk property at Malartic, Que. The prospect is adjacent to property owned by Aur Resources and access is gained from the Kierens shaft on Aur’s ground. A fully diluted ore reserve of 15,365 tons was established on the Gold Hawk property and this is now being mined. A little more than 50% of the tonnage will be extracted by September when the Kierens mine and shaft are scheduled to close.

High costs are the cause of the Kierens closure; an increase in the price of gold could lead to reactivation of the mine and consequently renewed access to Gold Hawk’s remaining reserves.

Thunderwood has established an exploration budget of $3.5 million for the current year. Most of this sum will be expended at Scott Lake and Pelletier Lake with diamond drilling planned at the Daniel and Donalda properties, also in Quebec. The latter drilling will follow up promising exploration work carried out during the two previous years.