Is the Gold everywhere at Eleonore?
Sounds good if so.
I don't know what is better or worse about south east west or north if the major find at Eleonore. What I have observed most often gold camps is that it is hard to see structure except from aerial photographs, and on the ground following veins. Geo maps did not often show it that much. Blobs of colour are not shear zones or folds. Gold hides in these structures as the Brits discovered when the aerially photographed Canada in the 1930's. It is a bit of a laugh that not one major break or fold zone is mapped as such in any of the Ontario maps. The LSSZ of Hemlo fame was not on any map. It is as plain as day on the ground, and was found in the 1600's by a French explorer!
The Beardmore gold belt is mapped but not on the one inch to 4 mile map. Qtz-feldspar Porphyries which are basic markers of gold were left off all maps since 1940, their shapes put down to x's and the label became "undifferentiated felsic intrusives". Very scientific. Assholes. They were obviously differentiated by their mineralogy and their texture and there were volcanic associated, often stratiform. 100 porphyries were left off the Hemlo map and the folding and related shears as well. Geos babbled on about relations to the major granites as late as 1975, when the granites were proven 1 billion years younger than the gold, and the stratiform felsic, gold and copper bearing (up to 1/10 of an ounce and often 0.05 opt) porphyries were ignored by everybody but the prospectors and some companies.
Major structures such as the Snow Lake Fold, the Destor Porcupine, the Cadillac Larder, the Nakina fold breaks, the Casa Berardi are not mapped as such. ONly when IF maps them out like neon signs as in Beardmore do they nod at the nature of the structural deformity. Sure you see the odd break indicated on the odd map, but it is not all sewn together as a structural province thing along the obvious indications of the continuity. You are supposed to know where they are and follow the volcanics. It as if the whole fault system was not there. They sure show up under AFMAG and Input systems. Gold faults, with all that non conductive quartz are as conductive as hell by time domain and "high" frequency systems. The shears in the fault systems are what kick. This is not an iron clad rule as I have seen shears that don't kick and by all acounts they should.
After all our leadership in Archean geology for about 135 years the standard of age dating and structural mapping and the amount of it is embarrassing. The Russians and Aussies put us to shame. The GSC used to be a government department and had a cabinet minister. Now it is an irrelevant group of geos toiling in a basement with a budget that is barely enough to keep a website. in 1954 they had a one million dollar budget. Equivalent to 12 million today and with government bloat probably much higher.
If you want to look for gold you don't use the modern maps. You use 1930 maps. And you use European structural geology. Canadians such at structure, despite having drilled at the stuff for decades. No CDN geo uses oriented core drilling which would more cheaply elucidate structure. (I mean the shape and orientation of emplaced veins) The Aussies use it all the time. Pretty healthy mining industry over there.
The whole Elenore area and north was suspected as a gold source since the placer gold rush to the James Bay area in 1890. But no follow up. Too remote. Next gold discovery remotely in the area had to wait til 1903 when they drove the survey line between Quebec and Ontario. That was Casa Berardi on the Ontario side. That one is still not drilled. About 30 miles from Detour.
What I am saying is the the basic gold emplacement structure is not yet understood. Roberto is in this massive fold nose that closes I guess to the west. But I am not sure if it is a syncline or anti. It could be synclinally west plunging, east closing, or synclinally east plunging, west closing, or anticlinally plunging west, west closing, anti-plunging east, east closing. The axial plane of the fold appears to be east west. This means a number of things. Other folds the same size, east or west as repetitions which is rare but not unheard of, and folds north and south which is far more common. The zone could extend in folds back and forth a 100 miles north and south, though I don't think so.
Another common thing is shears along the axis, east and west carrying different forms of gold rather than the limb form like the Roberto type. There are limbs, and shears between limbs. Both will exist. And I suppose tension fracture type too, but that depends much on host rock competence. Shears or fractures develop based on relative competence of beds themselves adjacent beds, and quantitatively on degree of compression stress. Sometimes the north limbs are the only ones that carry, as in Timmins, and other areas sometimes, both do. What have we not looked at yet? Westerly shears, easterly shears running down the the middle of the Roberto fold east-west, and southerly repetititions of the pattern. The northern folds appear to be related that that would be EVR. It appears the GZZ could be on a westerly shear.
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