Opinaca Reservoir, Que. — The question isn’t whether
The lonore deposit continues to expand with the release of each successive set of assays. Judging by the results from 113 holes completed on the grassroots discovery since drilling began a year ago, the number of contained ounces varies anywhere from 1 to 3 million.
Drilling so far has intercepted a steeply dipping, gold-bearing mineralized system over a strike length of 1,200 metres and to a depth of 550 metres. One of the best intercepts, in the Roberto zone, assayed 20.7 grams gold per tonne across 12 metres (equal to a true thickness of 10.7 metres) in hole 113. This same hole also cut Roberto Est, a sub-parallel zone, at a depth of 450 metres, intersecting 51.9 grams over 2.4 metres (true width: 2.3 metres). The two main zones, Roberto and Roberto Est, are about 50 metres apart, which allows the crosscutting of both zones with the same drill hole. A third distinct, sub-parallel zone, Mid-Roberto, is especially well-developed in the southeastern extension of the system, where recent drilling expanded the southern limits another 50 metres along strike by intersecting 14.08 grams across 3 metres and 11.51 grams over 2 metres at a depth of nearly 350 metres.
The Roberto zones are hosted in a sedimentary package strongly altered to sericite, albite, epidote, tourmaline, muscovite and chlorite, presenting an intense potassic alteration. Finely disseminated sulphide mineralization, consisting of 5-8% pyrrhotite, arsenopyrite, pyrite and trace chalcopyrite, is developed in the sediments in association with some quartz veining and stockwork. The zones, which strike broadly northwest-southeast and dip steeply (80) to the east, are part of a replacement-style system of en echelon lenses.
The gold mineralization in the sandstone-greywacke assemblage has an arsenic-antimony signature associated with silica-potassic-tourmaline alteration. Microscopic studies indicate the gold is fine-grained, and a good proportion occurs freely between the microcline and biotite silica grains. There is some gold attached to the pyrrhotite and arsenopyrite, which Paul Archer, Virginia’s vice-president of exploration, says is less than 10%.
Much of the deposit has yet to be systematically tested below 250 metres along its known length. Three drill rigs are turning round the clock on the project this summer, and one of these will be exploring new targets.
“If a significant portion of the Roberto zones could be confirmed to four-hundred metres, as some parts already have, we could see the resource increasing toward two million ounces and the net asset value approaching nine dollars per share,” says analyst Trevor Turnball of Wellington West Capital Markets in a recent research report. “The new valuation is based on a resource estimation of 1.7 million ounces, with a ninety per cent recovery as indicated by early bottle-roll tests.”
The company will not have a resource estimate ready for the new discovery until year-end.
What makes lonore unique is the consistent nature of the mineralization, hole to hole. This is best illustrated section by section. In the central part of the deposit, where some of the highest grade and deepest mineralization has been encountered, Virginia is drilling off the deposit at 25-to-50-metre spacing. On grid line 30+75 N, Virginia has stepped back and drilled off the Roberto zones to a depth of (so far) 550 metres, encountering the following:
– 37.57 grams gold across 2 metres in the Roberto zone at about 30 metres vertical depth in hole 110.
– Hole 39 cut 18 metres of 6.94 grams gold close to surface in Roberto Est, before intersecting 110 grams across 3 metres in the Roberto zone at 70 metres depth.
– Hole 16 passed through 9.2 metres of 11.1 grams in the hangingwall and 4.7 metres of 14.3 grams in the footwall of Roberto Est at 45 metres depth, followed by 7.45 grams across 3.5 metres in Roberto at about 95 metres from surface.
– Hole 17 hit 1.3 metres of 6.76 grams, followed by 2 metres of 3.36 grams in Roberto Est at a depth of 80 metres before intersecting 10.96 grams across 6 metres in the main Roberto zone at 130 metres from surface.
– Hole 24 intersected 12.09 grams across 2.4 metres in the Roberto Est zone at 125 metres depth followed by 10.78 grams across 6.5 metres in Mid-Roberto and 15.2 grams over 2 metres in Roberto at 180 metres depth.
– Hole 40 stepped back 25 metres and hit 7.5 metres of 2.11 grams gold in Roberto Est and 8 metres of 7.35 grams in Roberto.
– Hole 33 was steepened and encountered 24.5 grams over 2 metres in an upper lens, no significant values in Roberto Est, 7.52 grams across 7 metres in the Mid-Roberto zone, and 15.3 grams across 2 metres in Roberto at a depth of 230 metres.
– Virginia continued to step back and intersected 9 metres grading 3.03 grams gold in Roberto Est at 240 metres from surface, followed by 4.3 metres of 10.04 grams in Roberto at 320 metres depth in hole 70.
– Hole 55 passed through the Roberto Est zone, cutting 3.1 grams across 20.3 metres before hitting Roberto at 340 metres depth, which ran 6.91 grams across 12.2 metres.
– Hole 65 encountered no significant values in Roberto Est at 325 metres depth but returned 2 metres of 14.7 grams for Mid-Roberto and 2.6 metres of 8.59 grams for Roberto, 400 metres from surface.
– Hole 105 intersected 5.28 grams across 2 metres in Roberto Est, 375 metres from surface, followed by 23.9 grams across 3.2 metres for Mid-Roberto at a 430-metre depth, and 10.44 grams across 2.2 metres in the Roberto zone at 475 metres vertical depth.
– Hole 113, the deepest hole to date, hit 2.4 metres grading 51.9 grams gold per tonne in Roberto Est, 4 metres of 4.86 grams in Mid-Roberto, and 12 metres of 20.7 grams in Roberto.
Large-tonnage potential
“The lonore project continues to generate good results, and we believe the exploration and evaluation of the Roberto gold deposits are in their infancy,” writes Don Poirier of First Associates Investments in a recent report. “The alteration and geologic setting of the Roberto zones in a sedimentary sequence of rocks are favourable for the development of a large-tonnage deposit with the potential for hosting a significant resource of gold.”
He adds: “We believe Virginia Gold has outlined a global resource in excess of one million ounces of gold in the Roberto zones to a depth of four-hundred metres.” Poirier goes on to say there is a geological potential for a 3-million-oz. gold deposit.
The consistency of grade and strength of the system is drawing comparisons to the Hemlo camp in Ontario, where three deposits have combined to total 25 million oz., and to the multi-million-ounce Morila deposit in Mali, West Africa.
The wholly owned lonore project is 320 km northeast of the town of Matagami and covers 227 sq. km of the Ell Lake area in the eastern part of the Opinaca Reservoir. The area can be reached by a 60-km-long gravel road off kilometre marker 395 of the James Bay paved road. It is then a 35-km-long journey to the property by barge during the summer months or by snowmobile in the winter. The Nemiscau airport, 100 km due south, provides easy access by helicopter or float plane.
The James Bay hydroelectric development is a multi-decade effort to build a series of power-generating dams on rivers that drain from Quebec into the James Bay eastern coastline. So far, eight dams have been built on the La Grande River system, north of lonore, resulting in the creation of the Opinaca Reservoir, along the edge of which lonore sits. Construction is now under way on the Eastmain River’s EMI dam complex, about half-way between the Nemiscau airport and the lonore project. The hydro camp is a huge sprawling work network of bunk houses and roads, along with a newly constructed ice rink.
“It’s not such a remote area,” remarked Arc
her as he and The Northern Miner circled the hydro construction site in the helicopter on the way into the lonore project. Indeed, in a recent Gold Mining Stock Report, publisher Robert Bishop remarked: “The proximity to power, the additional infrastructure brought to the region, and the generous tax credits are among the reasons Quebec is almost certainly the best place on the planet to find and develop a mine.”
Lower Eastmain
The project is in the Lower Eastmain belt, straddling the contact between two major tectonic stratigraphic assemblages, namely the volcanic rocks of the La Grande sub-province to the south and sedimentary rocks of the Opinaca sub-province to the north. In the vicinity of the Opinaca Reservoir, these rocks are intruded by syn-to-late tectonic dioritic and tonalitic plutons. This assemblage of rocks is more than 25 km long and 3-4 km wide.
The lonore property block is centred on a discrete diorite-tonalite intrusion measuring 10 km in diameter at the northern margin of a vast batholithic complex and in the contact between the La Grande and Opinaca sub-provinces.
Virginia began reconnaissance work in the area in 2001 to evaluate the former Ell copper showing, which
An induced-polarization (IP) ground geophysical survey was conducted that winter over the area of the main showing, followed by additional prospecting and mapping in the summer of 1992. The discovery of several other copper-gold-silver occurrences in the dioritic intrusion extended the mineralized system by another 2 km to the northeast. Moreover, this program led to the discovery of a different style of mineralization. A large, 2-metre-diameter, angular boulder of quartzo-feldspathic metasediment, with disseminated arsenopyrite and pyrrhotite, assayed 22.9 grams gold in a grab sample. Re-sampling of the boulder yielded 13.9 grams.
The 2003 exploration program at lonore was tailored to find its source. A new grid was cut on the northern shore of Ell Lake and covered with ground magnetic and IP surveys at 200-metre spacing. A soil geochemical survey was also done, utilizing mobile metal ion (MMI) analysis. Many additional boulders of mineralized metasediments were uncovered in an area measuring 4 by 2 km. Several of these boulders contained anomalous gold, with values as high as 18.6 grams gold per tonne.
Stripping
Using a special back-hoe brought in by helicopter, Virginia began an extensive stripping program in 2003 and exposed a limited portion of the probable source area — a highly altered and mineralized sedimentary sequence at the margin of the Ell Lake diorite intrusion. The first trenches in the area returned several local grabs of better than 1 gram gold, including 29 grams, whereas the results of channel sampling included 37 metres averaging 0.81 gram, and 5.2 metres of 2.42 grams.
In early 2004, Virginia carried out further IP and standard-frequency horizontal loop electromagnetic surveys across the ice of Ell Lake and conducted an airborne magnetic survey targeting the northern contact between the Ell Lake diorite and the sedimentary sequence. The sediments at the northern edge of the intrusion are an assemblage of sandstone-greywacke conglomerate. These sediments are intruded by dioritic dykes and appear to be affected by east-west-trending folding and faulting. The sedimentary package grades gradually to pegmatite-bearing paragneisses to the north, suggesting a steep metamorphic gradient.
The summer 2004 campaign began with prospecting and hand-stripping in an area where a grab sample taken in the late fall of 2003 had delivered 10.25 grams. This resulted in the discovery of the Roberto showing, which yielded 4.29 grams across 12 metres (including 6.16 grams over 5 metres) and 15.8 grams across 3 metres in the first two adjacent trenches. “Without that outcrop, this would not have been discovered,” says Archer. Further stripping and sampling returned more impressive results, including 19.7 grams across 10 metres, 17.6 grams over 7 metres, and 10.8 grams across 9 metres.
Using an excavator, Roberto and the nearby Roberto Est were exposed at surface over a lateral distance of 250 metres in a north-south direction. Channel sampling returned consistent high-grade values ranging up to 19.75 grams across widths of 3-13 metres, with individual grab samples assaying as high as 80.7 grams.
Diamond drilling was initiated in late August 2004. The program produced encouraging results off the bat, including 18.8 grams over 16 metres in hole 2, 9 metres of 7.33 grams in hole 8, and 14 metres averaging 14.3 grams in hole 9. “Once we started getting the assays back, we realized we were dealing with something special and have been drilling ever since,” states Archer.
This past winter, Virginia took advantage of the ice conditions to test the heart of the Roberto mineralized system, portions of which are covered by Ell Lake. The summer drilling is able to target the northern and southeastern extensions of Roberto from land, in addition to testing the system at depth.
Substantial growth
“lonore has all the earmarks of substantial growth in front of it, and with a ninety per cent hit rate on drilling to date, in the best mining jurisdiction on the planet, it’s no wonder all the major gold companies are paying close attention to it,” says Bishop. Virginia acknowledges it has signed confidentiality agreements with at least a dozen interested parties.
“I view the lonore project as the most significant new discovery in the marketplace, and the prospect of it being a gold camp — not just one deposit — seems extremely likely,” Bishop writes.
During the 2004 fall program, several trenches were dug outside the Roberto system to test peripheral targets. Some of the more interesting results were obtained 800 metres northeast of the Roberto discovery in the TR-20 area, where initial trenching had yielded up to 0.81 gram across 37 metres. The 2004 program returned 6 metres of 6.47 from new channel sampling on a northern extension. The area was sprayed with seven shallow holes that showed a lot of smoke. One of the holes intersected 121 metres grading 0.75 gram, while another of the holes pulled 94 metres of 1.28 grams, including a 1-metre interval of 80.5 grams.
A single hole into an IP anomaly, 250 metres northwest of the TR-20 area, cut two narrow mineralized intervals, including 1 metre of 10.61 grams and 2 metres of 3.5 grams.
Trenches TR-27 and TR-30, 500 metres directly north of Roberto, exposed weaker mineralization in the range of 300-2,300 ppb. However, grab samples from two large sub-angular boulders in these trenches yielded 3.95 grams and 6.29 grams.
Another promising area is that of TR-11, about 500 metres southeast of TR-20. Sampling in 2003 returned 2.42 grams across 5.2 metres. A single hole undercut the trench and hit 4.01 grams across 12 metres, including 9.5 grams over 4 metres.
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