Maple Gold Mines Ltd (TSX-V:MGM, OTCQB:MGMLF) revealed that it is advancing property-wide volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) targeting during its busy summer field program at the Douay and Joutel gold projects in Quebec's prolific Abitibi Greenstone Gold Belt.
In addition to its 100%-controlled Eagle Mine property, Maple is in a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with Agnico Eagle Mines Ltd (TSX:AEM) to advance the district-scale Douay and Joutel gold projects.
Maple is also planning VMS exploration work at its wholly owned Morris project, in Québec.
The JV's primary focus is on testing resource expansion targets at Douay and testing prospective near-mine extension targets in the Telbel mine area at Joutel. However, today’s announcement from Maple is a reminder that, in addition to the current gold deposit at Douay and past-producing Eagle-Telbel mine trend, the Company is not ignoring the prospective VMS targets and horizons across its large property package.
The JV partners have long agreed to jointly fund C$500,000 in exploration on VMS targets on the western portion of Douay. It’s worth noting that Agnico Eagle has become the company they are today in part due to the tremendous success they’ve had at the La Ronde VMS mine in the Abitibi.
"We have methodically built a pipeline of prospective gold and base metals VMS targets across the large >400 km² Douay-Joutel property and have expanded our technical expertise in order to systematically evaluate and advance a VMS-focused exploration program," said Maple Gold CEO Matthew Hornor.
"The past-producing high-grade Estrades zinc-gold mine is just over 11 km to the west of Douay-Joutel and the same geologic horizon that hosted that mine appears to continue onto the western portion of the Douay property. Further to the southeast, historical regional exploration drilling along the Joutel Deformation Zone, east of the historical Eagle-Telbel deposits, has also returned anomalous zinc and gold values.”
Hornor noted that Maple is planning to wrap up “cost-effective” field work this summer and bring the “highest priority VMS discovery targets to a drill-ready stage."
Although the geological model for Eagle-Telbel is evolving, Maple said the main VMS target horizons occur laterally along the Eagle-Telbel Mine Horizon, as well as along multiple interflow horizons within The Cartwright Hills, which includes the Estrades horizon.
Meanwhile, the Joutel targets include several EM anomalies within 2-to-5 km of the historical Eagle, Telbel and Eagle West deposits. The deposits are associated with the Harricana and Joutel Deformation Zones and appear as “discrete conductive zones” aligned along a well-defined northwest trend, said Maple.
The electromagnetic (EM) survey indicates similar structures extending 9 km to the east where historical drilling intersected anomalous gold (Au) and zinc (Zn) in several holes.
Maple will advance VMS targets at Douay and Joutel by collating existing data, reviewing historical drill logs, followed by field work including litho-geochemistry, and follow-up ground EM surveys to bring VMS target areas towards a drill-ready stage.
Separately, work at Morris will constitute detailed litho-geochemical sampling to establish the full extent of VMS-related hydrothermal alteration and identify promising portions of the 3-km long conductor identified by ground geophysics in 2022 and this year.[JL1]
Morris lies 30 km east of the Matagami VMS mining camp and hosts the Watson Lake rhyolite unit, which forms the footwall of all the VMS mines at Matagami.
Importantly, the JV recently hired senior geologist Dr Marina Schofield, who is an expert in structural geology and VMS systems, to lead the VMS exploration. In addition, Maple has Gérald Riverin, a well-known VMS expert with over four decades of experience in the Abitibi Greenstone belt, on the company’s board and Technical Advisory Committee.
Contact the author Uttara Choudhury at uttara@proactiveinvestors.com
Follow her on Twitter: @UttaraProactive
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