Location

The Key Lake property is 12 km west of the town of Geraldton. It is a few hundred meters north of the TransCanada highway. Geraldton is about 290 km by highway northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario.

Size of Property

26 patented claims and leases; 542 hectares (1,339 acres)

Ownership

100%

Project Overview

The project area includes the past-producing Jellicoe mine and the surrounding area previously drilled by Placer Dome in the 1980s and Cyprus Canada in the 1990s. The Jellicoe mine produced 5,620 ounces of gold in 1939-1941 and an additional 55 ounces in 1949 (Mason and White, 1986). The ore body was a vein with a strike length of about 100 m (330 feet) and average width of 0.6 m (2 feet) but the mine workings extend for about 1,000 m (3,300 feet) along strike at depths less than 150 m (490 feet).

Drilling by Placer Dome (Dome Exploration) in the 1980s identified extensive zones of gold mineralization but these were initially considered too low grade to be economic (McCormack, L.V. 1984). Placer Dome conducted additional drilling in 1990. Subsequently, Cyprus Canada confirmed two shallow "ore" shoots with average grades greater than 1 g/tonne (Gasparetto and Stevenson, 1996). Infill drilling by Roxmark Mines Limited in 2010 and 2011 has expanded the resource and has continued to identify long mineralized intervals, such as 1.6 g/tonne (0.047 oz/st) over a drilled length of 30 m (98 feet) in KL-11-109 (including 11.9 g/tonne over 0.3 m), and some higher grade intervals, such as 5.6 g/tonne (0.16 oz/st) over 16.1 m (53 feet) in KL-11-112 (including 31.6 g/tonne over 1.85 m). There has been essentially no drilling below a vertical depth of about 250 m (820 feet).

The Key Lake project is hosted by the same metasedimentary sub-belt which hosts the MacLeod-Cockshutt, Little Long Lac, Mosher, Hardrock, Magnet, Tombill, and Bankfield mines 2-14 km to the east. It is less than 15 km by highway from open pit resources of Premier's Hardrock project and could share a mill and other facilities with that project.

Geology

The Key Lake project is located within the Beardmore-Geraldton greenstone belt of the Wabigoon subprovince of the Superior province. The project area is within the southern metasedimentary sub-belt on the southern limb of a west-plunging syncline. The mineralized zone at Key Lake is 550-800 m northeast of the Tombill-Bankfield fault and diverges from it toward the west. It is about 2.5 km south of the contact with the central metavolvanic sub-belt.

Metagreywacke is the predominant rock type in the project area and occurs in a series of turbidites. A thick section of fine to coarse-grained altered wacke has been logged as arkose and hosts most of the gold mineralization. A bed with granule- to pebble-size clasts may be a matrix-supported metaconglomerate or a vitric lapilli tuff. Magnetite-rich argillite occurs to the north and south of the mineralized zone. Banded iron formations may occur farther north.

The metasedimentary rocks have been intruded by one or more thin (0.5-3 m, 1.5-10 feet) porphyritic-aphanitic felsic dikes which are spatially related to gold mineralization. Gabbro and diorite dikes occur in some areas and Proterozoic diabase dikes crosscut all other rock units.

Mineralization

Gold occurs in altered metagreywacke (arkose) and felsic dikes and in thin veins cutting these rocks. Gold-bearing altered rocks typically have more than trace amounts of pyrite and/or arsenopyrite. Sphalerite and silver were reported by Mason and White (1986). Accessory chalcopyrite has been identified in some holes. A variety of veins are present including quartz with angular bits of white carbonate typically along vein margins, white and gray massive quartz, and dark grey veinlets usually less than 3 mm thick composed of quartz and/or very fine grained arsenopyrite. Visible gold occurs in veins in both metagreywacke and felsic dikes but is not common and rarely occurs in wall rock rather than veins.

Alteration occurs within and extends beyond the zone of gold mineralization. Widespread dolomite/ankerite alteration was detected by staining (Gasparetto and Stevenson, 1996). Zones of greenish, brownish, and rarely yellowish sericitization are more limited and envelope all but a small fraction of the gold mineralization. Silicification is more limited still and is a very good indicator of gold mineralization. However, a significant proportion of the gold mineralization does not occur in silicified rocks.

References

Gasparetto, A. and Stevenson, D.B., 1996, 1996 Diamond drilling report, Roxmark -- PDI property, Geraldton, Ontario: Report for Cyprus Canada, Inc.

Mason, J. and White, G., 1986, Gold occurrences, prospects, and deposits of the Beardmore-Geraldton area, districts of Thunder Bay and Cochrane: Ontario Geological Survey, Open File Report 5630.

McCormack, L.V., 1984, Exploration summary, Key Lake option, Lindsley Township, Ontario: Report for Dome Exploration.

Maps

Key Lake Longitudinal section