A fantastic summer of fieldwork is behind us and most of the Laurentian Goldfields exploration team is taking a little time off before a busy winter season starts up. We still have a crew hard at work in the Abitibi, as part of our ongoing generative program in Quebec, but we expect them home before the snow flies, or at least before it needs to be shovelled regularly. Here is quick update on our ongoing exploration programs…
Goldpines North Joint Venture (50/50) with Kinross Gold Corporation
At Goldpines North Joint Venture (GPNJV), Laurentian Goldfields has completed an extensive program of mapping, overburden removal and rock, soil and lake sediment sampling. This work has turned up a number of compelling geochemical anomalies, the highlight of which is the drill-ready Pakwash Lake Anomaly, at the centre of the GPNJV property.
Overburden removal at North Sea target, GPNJV
The 4 km by 2 km Pakwash Lake anomaly is defined by detailed lake sediment sampling on a 100m by 200 m spaced sample grid and is characterized by elevated gold and antimony, flanked by a larger arsenic halo. Of the 484 samples that define the anomaly, 215 ran greater than 100 parts per billion (ppb) Au, with values ranging up to 843 ppb Au.
Gold in lake sediment samples from Pakwash Lake Anomaly, GPNJV
The Pakwash Lake anomaly is spatially associated with the intersection of two prominent faults, one of which marks the contact between meta-sedimentary rocks and a large diorite intrusion. The characteristics of the Pakwash Lake anomaly appear to support Laurentian’s exploration model, which is targeting a large, sediment-hosted gold deposit, similar to the Roberto Zone at Goldcorp’s Éléonore project, in the James Bay region of Quebec.
Laurentian recently sat down to review this year’s results with our partners at Kinross. The results look good and Kinross has elected to fund $1 million worth of diamond drilling, subject to the approval of the budget by senior Kinross management and its Board of Directors. Drilling is scheduled to be completed during Q1 of 2011 and will be managed by Laurentian’s technical team.
Goldpines South Project
Throughout the summer, Laurentian has run the Goldpines South project concurrently with work at GPNJV. The exploration programs were similar for both projects, incorporating rock, soil and lake sediment sampling and overburden removal and channel sampling within select gold-in-soil anomalies. Near the end of the season, most of our work focused on the Granite, SLF, and West Leg targets, which were defined by soil sampling earlier in the summer.
Channel Sampling at West Leg 4 Target, Goldpines South Project
Our work at Goldpines South has been fully funded by AngloGold Ashanti, who have an option to earn up to 60% interest in the project via the ongoing Superior Alliance (see news release dated April 29, 2009). We’ll be reviewing the 2010 results with our partners at AngloGold Ashanti later this month. We look forward to updating you on our progress as soon as possible.
Abitibi Generative Project
Back in September we announced that part of technical team was heading to Quebec to begin prospecting in the Abitibi Subprovince (see news release dated September 29, 2010). Our geologists have completed a four week field program of prospecting, rock and soil geochemical sampling and a regionally extensive hydro-geochemical survey.
The rocks of the Abitibi represent one of the most prolific gold environments in the world and we’re excited to be applying the innovative geological concepts and cost-effective techniques that to date have been so critical to the success of our exploration programs elsewhere, in order to generate new opportunities for Laurentian Goldfields in Quebec.
Laurentian Goldfields tech,Craig Beauchamp , sampling outcrop for the Abitibi Generative Project
Given the large amount of data our geologists have collected so far, the analytical results are still rolling in. Based on some encouraging features they observed in the field, our Abitibi team has decided to head back to Quebec, to work up a couple of the target areas a little more, before winter sets in.
We’ll provide updates on our results as soon as we’ve have them all in hand.