BRIGADIER GOLD LIMITED ANNOUNCES MAJOR EXPANSION
January 22, 2003 (Toronto, Ontario) Brigadier Gold Limited is pleased to announce a major expansion of its mining claim holdings in the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake area and its entrance into the Matachewan gold area, both located in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Brigadier Gold Limited, pending regulatory approvals, will now either own or have a right to own a 100% interest in a total of 334 claim units which includes 36 which are patented, licenses of occupation or leased. These claims have a good potential for hosting economic gold and/or diamondiferous kimberlite deposits. Brigadier Gold Limited intends to seek major financing to conduct the extensive exploration required for this large property.
The original Benson Creek gold property and the July 2002 property option which together total 61 claim units (32 non-patented claims, 19 patented claims and 10 licenses of occupation) either adjoin, are contiguous to or are nearby to the 229 claims units optioned in December 2002. These 290 claim units are in the Larder Lake area with 236 of them being contiguous. Both option agreements are with Skead Holdings Limited of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, a private company, the president of which is Robert A. MacGregor, P.Eng., a mining engineer and prospector who has been actively conducting mineral exploration in the Larder Lake area for over 30 years. Brigadier Gold Limited has divided these claim units into 7 groups: the Benson Creek Gold Property (consisting of the original patented 29 claims plus the 32 claim units of the July 2002 option), the Benson Creek group (43 claim units), the Benson Creek West group (35 claim units), the Benson Creek East group (54 claim units), the SW Arm Peninsula group (53 claim units) and the Diamond Lake group (44 claim units). All groups are contiguous to each other with the exception of the Diamond Lake group and 10 units from the Benson Creek West group. Brigadier Gold Limited intends to operate two separate projects within these claim groups to be known as the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond Project and the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Gold Project.
The remainder of the land package consists of 44 mining claim units (including 6 patented claims) and is known as the Chartre-Dufresne property. This property is located approximately 70 kilometers southwest of Larder Lake via and immediately north of paved Highway 66 in the Matachewan gold area. The claims were optioned in October 2002 and December 2002 from Roger Dufresne et al. of Kirkland Lake, Ontario. Mr. Dufresne is a prospector, the Past-President of the Ontario Prospectors Association and has held and prospected claims in this area for over 15 years. Brigadier Gold Limited intends to carry out exploration on the Chartre-Dufresne property as a part of the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Gold Project.
The 290 claim units in the Larder Lake area cover ground which is favorable for the discovery of Precambrian-style quartz-carbonate vein type gold deposits typical of the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake gold camp mines. This ground is also especially favorable for the discovery of kimberlite pipes and possibly heterolithic lamprophyre breccias both of which may carry economic concentrations of diamonds. Diamondiferous lamprophyres have been found in the nearby Cobalt area and also in the Wawa, Ontario area.
The Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Gold Project area includes the original Benson Creek gold property where Brigadier uncovered significant surface gold showings in 1996 and 1997. A 1000 m diamond drill program was commenced in July 2002 but was suspended after the drilling of three holes totaling 600 meters. This limited program intersected a few narrow near-surface gold zones and was confined to a small area having dimensions of approximately 100 meters by 100 meters. The geology in the 1937-5 area consists of very complexly faulted and folded rock units which presents a challenge for the drill definition of the surface zones at depth. In 1997, 3300 meters of diamond drilling was recommended as follow-up for the Benson Creek gold property and this recommendation still holds as several excellent targets remain untested on the property. Also, the addition of the Skead Holdings Limited claims, which essentially surround the Benson Creek gold property, opens up further favorable ground for surface and subsurface gold exploration. The Diamond Lake group which straddles the regional Larder-Cadillac fault (closely associated with the gold mines of the Kirkland Lake and Larder Lake, Ontario area and with the gold mines of the Noranda, Cadillac, Malartic and Val d’Or areas of Quebec) is another promising gold exploration target area because in 1949 diamond drilling of a syenite dyke produced 8 intersections with gold grades ranging from trace up to 0.80 ounces per ton with the best intercept being 0.19 ounces gold per ton over 4 feet. In addition, Mr. MacGregor has supplied information regarding three other old gold showing areas which present possible gold exploration target areas. Further research of the numerous Ontario Geological Survey assessment file reports and maps for all claim groups will require a visit to Kirkland Lake in the near future.
The Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond Project area lies within the northwest-trending regional Lake Timiskaming Structural Zone in which the kimberlite pipes of the Attawapiskat, Kirkland Lake and New Liskeard areas are located. Until recently, many diamond exploration geologists considered the Kirkland Lake area to be less promising for diamonds. These geologists reasoned that because even though there have been several kimberlites discovered (some even having diamonds present in non-economic concentrations) and even though a high potential for the discovery of additional diamondiferous kimberlites exists, the kimberlite indicator mineral (KIM) chemistry in these pipes wasn’t considered favorable for actually locating mineable diamondiferous kimberlites. The discovery of the Victor kimberlite pipe in the Attiwapiskat area of James Bay by De Beers Exploration Canada Inc. has presented a challenge to this way of thinking.
Over the past 10 to 15 years there have been approximately 24 kimberlite pipes discovered (many by De Beers Exploration Canada Inc.) in the Attiwapiskat area which is located near James Bay at a distance of approximately 500 km to the northwest of Kirkland Lake. One cluster of 18 kimberlite pipes has been identified spread over an area roughly 10 km wide by 30 km long. Sixteen of these kimberlite pipes are reported by De Beers to be diamondiferous. All pipes have what is considered to be “poor” KIM chemistry, meaning that according to scientific research on existing producing and non-producing kimberlites thoughout the world, these pipes are poor candidates for hosting an economic deposit of diamonds. The apparent economically favorable kimberlite mineralogical model includes the presence of a high proportion of low calcium garnets which are classified as G10’s. The kimberlite pipes in this region do contain G10’s but are reported to be dominated by G9’s, the less favorable garnet. In addition the chromite chemistry is not favorable.
R.P. Sage in his 1996 report (OGS open file report 6019. Kimberlites of the Attawapiskat area, James Bay Lowlands) for the Ontario Geological Survey states in regard to the Victor-1 kimberlite pipe ”The geochemistry of the garnets indicate an almost exclusively G-9 assemblage with several grains falling on or just across the 85% line{line above which G-10 garnets exist on a wt %Cr2O5 vs wt %CaO plot}. Chromite is uncommon and has a chemistry that falls outside the fields of chromite intergrown with diamond or of chromite included in diamond. The ilmenite geochemistry indicates a reduced suite. The absence of G-10 garnet and chromite compositions falling well outside the field of more interesting chemistry would suggest that Victor-1 is perhaps one of the less interesting kimberlite pipes in the Attawapiskat cluster. The ilmenite compositions are acceptable to the kimberlite magma being reduced and favorable for diamond preservation {The one favorable characteristic}. Sage continues by stating “Monopros Ltd. {De Beers company} recovered 96 macrodiamonds (>1.0 mm) from the 28 201.4 kg sample collected in 1997 indicating that the Victor-1 pipe is very promising. These results also mean that pipes within the cluster displaying an indicator mineral chemistry interpreted to be less promising under current modeling concepts need to be re-evaluated in the context of the Victor-1 results.” In fact, as recently observed on their web site, De Beers Exploration Canada Inc. has stated that a feasibility study will begin at Victor in January 2003 and will take approximately 12 months to complete. The results of this work will determine if Victor can advance to mine development. A resource of 36.2 million tonnes with a grade of 0.43 carats at US$150 per carat has been calculated for the Victor pipe.
In the Kirkland Lake area, 8 kimberlite pipes have been discovered within 25 km of Brigadier Gold Limited’s Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond Project. These pipes were discovered as early as 1983 and discovery continued throughout the 1980’s up into the early 1990’s when exploration ceased in the area. In fact, one of the first recorded kimberlites in Ontario was discovered in 1968 at the Upper Canada Mine located approximately 6 km northwest of Brigadier Gold Limited’s Diamond Lake claim group. It appears that at least four of these pipes contained low concentrations of diamonds in the varying size of samples collected and that the KIM chemistry was unfavorable for economic concentrations of diamonds. Diamond exploration prematurely ceased in the Kirkland Lake area most likely due to the November 1991 discovery of diamonds at Lac de Gras in the Northwest Territories and due to the apparently less promising chemistry of the KIM’s in the Kirkland Lake area pipes. Kimberlite exploration in this region shifted about 75 km to the southeast to the Cobalt area and more recently even further south to Temagami and North Bay.
The Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake area remains quiet for diamond exploration despite the more recent favorable news regarding the Victor-1 pipe, which apparently contradicts the current KIM chemistry model. Brigadier Gold Limited’s management believes that there are a few reasons for this: one, the junior resource capital market has been severely depressed and has only just began a recovery in 2002; two, the herd mentality of junior resource companies has sent them off to new diamond discovery areas such as the Coronation Gulf, NWT and the Otish Mountains, Quebec; and, three, the land situation in the Kirkland Lake area appears to be tied-up by many claim owners thus presenting a formidable task for assembling a decent property holding.
During the summer drill program on the Benson Creek gold property, Brigadier Gold Limited management recognized the potential for the discovery of kimberlites not only on its own claims but also on other claims in the area. Discussions with the staff of the Resident Geologist’s Office of the Ontario Geological Survey in Kirkland Lake led to further research and this convinced Brigadier management that the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake area still had potential for the discovery of not only more kimberlite pipes but also the distinct possibility of discovering a potentially economic diamondiferous pipe like the Victor. Brigadier Gold Limited decided to suspend the drilling operations on the Benson Creek gold property in order to assemble two land packages: one for diamond exploration and an addition to its current gold exploration holdings in the Larder Lake area, and the other for gold exploration in the Matachewan area. The task took time but Brigadier was fortunate in that the majority of the kimberlite targets we wanted were held under one ownership, Skead Holdings Ltd.
The 56 kimberlite targets covered by the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond Project claim groups consist of roughly circular magnetic features approximately two-thirds of which have associated Keating correlation coefficients. Keating correlation coefficients are calculated by computer modeling of circular magnetic anomaly data to see how closely it compares with a hypothetical vertical magnetic cylindrical body. Any Keating over 80% represents a good correlation and suggests that the ground magnetic anomaly is an expression of a vertical cylindrical body of rock such as a kimberlite. However, having a Keating correlation with a circular magnetic anomaly does not necessarily mean that the vertical cylindrical body even exists and if it does that it is a kimberlite.
Brigadier Gold Limited management has determined that the best exploration approach for the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond Project would be to ground check each anomaly to see if the cause could be determined by a bedrock exposure and then to diamond drill any of the unexplained circular magnetic anomalies. Brigadier management bases this approach on the fact that to conduct an extensive reverse circulation drill program to recover KIM’s from the glacial deposits and attempt to delineate and trace back KIM glacial dispersal trains may or may not work depending on the characteristics of the glacial deposits and on the interpretation of the data. In addition, reverse circulation drilling the meter or so possible into bedrock beneath the magnetic anomaly may or may not reveal the actual bedrock. For instance, drilling into a block of country rock included in a kimberlite pipe would lead to the erroneous conclusion that the anomaly wasn’t a kimberlite. Also, in the early 1980’s, the Ontario Ministry of Northern Development and Mines (MNDM) conducted reconnaissance overburden drilling and backhoe sampling of glacial till throughout the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake area. Heavy minerals were separated and identified from these samples with a focus at the time on gold grains. These samples were also examined for the KIM’s chrome diopside and pyrope. A number of the kimberlite targets of the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond Project have down-ice KIM’s detected by this program.
Brigadier Gold Limited intends to establish a detailed grid over any unexplained ground-checked kimberlite target, perform a magnetic geophysical survey and then diamond drill a 50-100 m hole into the anomaly as defined by the detailed magnetic survey. It is estimated that this will cost approximately $20,000 per target. The diamond drilling of every roughly circular magnetic anomaly of unknown bedrock source will be the most certain way to locate additional kimberlite pipes at a cost not much greater than for reverse circulation drilling. Also, the overall cost of exploration will be much less than remote exploration in areas such as the Otish Mountains and the Coronation Gulf. And, when a kimberlite pipe discovery is made, the cost of advanced exploration through to an actual mining and milling operation will be much less expensive due to the excellent area infrastructure. Furthermore, smaller mining operations will more likely be feasible in this built-up area as opposed to a more remote location. Brigadier Gold Limited management has tried to roughly determine what kimberlite target size to possibly expect. Information is scattered and sketchy but from data published on one of the Kirkland Lake kimberlite pipes, the B-30, a rough conservative estimation of tonnage of kimberlite would be 22 million tonnes. If such a pipe had diamonds of the grade value of the Victor pipe, in the Attiwapiskat area, that kimberlite pipe would most probably be economic in the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake area.
The Chartre-Dufresne property is the second part of Brigadier Gold Limited’s Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Gold Project. This property is in close proximity to, or may actually partially cover the western extension of the Larder-Cadillac regional fault; this fault being an important control for the Kirkland Lake gold camp located about 40 km to the northeast and which produced approximately 24 million ounces of gold from 7 mines at an average grade of 0.45 oz. gold/ton. In addition, two major mines of the Matachewan area which are located about 15 kilometers southwest of the Chartre-Dufresne property produced approximately 950,000 ounces of gold at an average grade of 0.10 ounces gold/ton from quartz vein stockworks in syenite intrusives.
The Chartre-Dufresne property was acquired by local area prospectors either by claim staking or by patent claim purchasing beginning in 1984 and continuing up to 2002. Exploration work has been done over all or a part of this property in 1936, the late 1940’s, the mid-1960’s, the mid-1970’s up to the mid-1980’s and since then some exploration work has been almost continuously done up to 1998. Exploration was completed by Falconbridge in 1986-87, Queenston Mining Inc. in 1990-91, Inmet Mining Corp. in 1996, Bice Ventures Corp in 1997-98 and by prospectors Roger Dufresne and Denis Chartre in 1990-91 and 1994-96. Lines have been cut over both the north and south parts of the property with electromagnetic, magnetic and induced polarization geophysical surveys having been conducted. Geological mapping was done on one grid cut over the south part of the property. Extensive prospecting, backhoe stripping, washing and sampling have been done by Chartre and Dufresne. These prospectors collected about 396 grab samples grading from nil up to 1.59 ounces gold per ton with roughly 80% of these being geochemically anomalous (greater than 10 ppb gold). Queenston diamond drilled 7 holes across the south part of the property totaling about 900 meters in 1991. Bice Ventures drilled two holes totalling approximately 470 meters on the north part of the property in 1998. A grab sample spectacularly grading 18.64 ounces gold per ton was taken by Queenston Mining Inc. in 1990 from a narrow quartz vein having pyrite banding hosted in felsic to intermediate metavolcanics and at a location near the east-central boundary of the property. However, drilling by Queenston underneath this zone did not intersect the higher grade material and the best intersected zone assayed 0.040 ounces gold per ton over 1.8 feet.
Brigadier Gold Limited acquired the Chartre-Dufresne gold property for several reasons. In August 2002, Brigadier Gold Limited’s geologist, qualified person and director, Allan J. Willy, P.Eng., visited the property accompanied by Prospector Roger Dufresne and by Gary Grabowski, District Geologist of the Ontario Geological Survey Resident Geologist’s Office in Kirkland Lake. Mr. Willy was very impressed with the showings and with information supplied later by Mr. Grabowski at the Resident Geologist’s Office. Mr. Grabowski used a regional magnetic map to illustrate how the Larder-Cadillac regional fault could possibly be crossing the property area. Brigadier Gold Limited management decided that the Chartre-Dufresne property was very favorable to explore for economic gold deposits for several reasons: one, the possibility of the regionally significant Larder-Cadillac fault crossing over or nearby to the property; two, the numerous and several higher grade gold samples collected during past exploration on the claims; and, three, especially, the very limited amount of diamond drilling done on the property despite the considerable amounts of surface surveys. Brigadier Gold Limited intends to conduct a compilation study of the property to be followed with possibly grid establishment, geological mapping, geophysical surveying, further prospecting, trenching and sampling and an extensive diamond drilling program.
Brigadier Gold Limited intends to seek substantial financing for both the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Diamond and Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake Gold Projects in the near future.
The terms of the new Agreements are a maximum work commitment expenditure of $850,000 over 48 months, 540,000 shares of the Company over 48 months, $40,000 Cash over 48 months, and, $115,000 Cash over 48 months or at the Company’s option, on any or all of the 1st, 2nd,3rd and 4th anniversaries, instead of all or part of the $115,000 Cash, the equivalent value of shares of the Company, to a maximum number of shares being 460,000 shares of the Company over 48 months, at the closing prices on the various anniversary dates as stated in the Agreements or the average of the bid and ask on the various anniversary dates as stated in the Agreements, however the maximum number of shares shall in no event exceed 460,000 over the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th anniversaries.
A 3% Net Smelter Royalty on diamonds and 2% Net Smelter Royalty on other minerals and products is payable under one agreement, and a 2% Net Smelter Royalty on all minerals and products is payable under the other agreements.
The terms of the new property acquisitions are subject to regulatory approval.
Brigadier Gold Limited trades on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol YRG and has 4,280,465 common shares outstanding.
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed, and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
For Further Information,
Contact; Herb Kokotow, President, Brigadier Gold Limited
(tel) : (905) 764-6175, (fax) : (416) 730-0599
E-mail : president@brigadiergold.com
Website : brigadiergold.com |
