MLM property visit.
We took a look at the Potter Mine in Matheson, of Millstream Mines Ltd. with independent consultant Dave Gamble. This Cu-Zn
property has very good and unexpected blue sky. Miles of rock with sulphides in it by eye, undrilled on both the north and
south horizon. East of the headframe, rusty host-rock is untouched by surface sampling or drilling. Why, I cannot fathom. It is almost unique geology in Canada, similar to Kidd Creek, the monster copper zinc mine of Falconbridge, of 150 million tons cu-zn-ag ore, in Timmins, Ontario. The Kidd is similar in grade, although lower in total value. The anomalies so far undrilled may expand the Potter by a multiple. I believe this may be possible, as I mentioned, the fragmental host units with copper in them have zero work in channels evident and no drilling either. And the whole mirror image of the same formation folded to the north, with better continuity and electric anomalies, has not seen one drill hole for 4 miles. A "veritable exploration crime" imho. In the late 90's explo stopped when copper price dove to below 50 cents. Grades are up to 15% copper and widths to 30 feet. Average may be 2% copper, 3% zinc and 18 dollar cobalt. This is the biggest largely-unexplored sulfide property in Ontario outside one in Timmins with nickel (we shall hear about that later this fall. 15 million dollar deal and 1% nickel with 40 foot widths.)
In addition, between 1100 and 3000 feet, about 2 million to 3 million tons of 250 dollar rock potential with dd holes exists
to 3000 feet. The Cost to develop complete with mill could be 25 million. The millstream people say far less, but they may be
talking only starting stages, sans mill. You need a mill later on and also lots of underground equipment and development. At
least 8 million. Milstream has access to all the equipment and a little of the money. Managment is Ernest HArrison who with
his father ran one of the world's largest mine development contractor for excess of 30 years. (Paddy Harrison.) The company installed minuteman missile silos and did lots of other work for the US gov.
The Airport property of Millstream's is a Sudbury copper-nickel property which they had in a JV with Crowflight Res.
Crowflight is on to the Manitoba nickel thing now which they think they can get into production. Sudbury is 260 miles from
Matheson-KL (area of Potter Mine) by road. To reach the Munro Twp. copper-zinc property (Potter Mine), you travel about 45
miles to Ramore, and then 15 or more miles up the 101 highway back east towards Quebec, then another 5 miles up a sideroad.
The 101 is a prolific gold break which has about five major gold properties, two of them recent producers, the Holt-McDermott, and the Holloway Mine. This is a continuation of the Destor Porcupine break, locally called the Pipestone fault.
The major gold mines of Timmins are all in this DP break. What is unusual about the Potter copper-zinc deposit is it is in a basalt rock. This mafic rock is part of the Kidd-Munro assemblage, which hosts the giant Kidd Creek copper-zinc-silver mine.
The Kidd Creek mine is in rhyolite, at the base of a komatiite flow. This basal bed is the same as the spinifex komatiite at the base of the Potter Mine. The mistake the old boys made, right up until 1996, was to call the host rock of the Potter a rhyolite. It is in fact a very different rock, with a completely different chemistry.
The host for the mineralization at the Potter is a mafic hyaloclastite or fragmental volcanic rock. Like a rhyolite it is very near the volcanic magma vent. There are two types of mineralizations here, sea-bed, laid down mineral from hot water
vents, and hydrothermal vein replacements of basalt fragments. I believe that these replacement-named deposits are actually mixtures of sulphides and clasts of basalt, but I would get some argument from the other theorists. I don't believe rock gets gasified from heated sulfides. The temperature is not high enough. Sulphuric acid I don't think could dissolve the rock out of the matrix either, but I have not seen models of this. There could be hydrofluoric connate waters that do that as in the tropics, which produce some laterites, and erode the granites, but again it is theoretical. Some basalts copper at the flow tops are replacements of carbonate which forms a CO2 gas at low temps, or relatively low -- i.e. 600 C, which is doable by hot water vents.
The structure is a fissure vent. The rocks are funny looking fragmentals, with pieces in them like bone cross sections. They
are as fresh as the day they were laid down, 2.6 billion years ago. The whole area is in an east west syncline or upward-turned fold with the spine in the middle and the two limbs north and south of that. The north limb hosts the same fragmental in similar fissure for 2.5 miles. This rock unit has electrical anomalies and copper showings but has not otherwise been explored. The targets would be zones of about 20 feet wide and 500 feet long in this rock unit, at various depths to 1500
feet. It would take about 100 holes to find whether or not there are any productive deposits on that limb. All the drilling to date has been to find the extension of the present orebody, about 15 holes, and some minor anomalies here and there in other rocks.
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