Report from the Calgary Mineral Exploration Group Mining Forum:
The Calgary Mineral Exploration Group Society fosters a recognition of the importance of mineral exploration and the development of mineral resources to the province of Alberta...website at:
meg.calgary.ab.ca
This past week they held a conference in Calgary which was aimed at bringing together the junior mining sector, researchers, investors and the financial industry for a review of the year's activities and a heads-up look at the future of mining in Alberta, Canada and around the world.
The theme of the two day forum was "New Horizons in Mining" and included invited and volunteered oral and poster presentations, exhibitor's booths, and a core shack.
There were many geologists in attendance and much of the material was presented at a highly technical level intended for such an audience.
Paul Hawkins and several others were there to increase awareness of Toodoggone (ie, AGC/ANZ), and I had a chance to discuss Toodoggone extensively as did the many other people who were also visiting the display booth. Everything I saw increased my confidence in Hawkins and ANZ, and I think everything that "can be done" IS "being done" at the moment, and the delays we have experienced are very reasonable given the atronomical amount of data and procedures involved with the up-coming resource est.
I am very encouraged by what I saw and heard at the show, and for the benefit of the many posters and lurkers who have some faith in the company as I do to pull this off, here is an executive summary of some of the information publicly distributed at the recent show:
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Located in north central B.C., 300 km. north of Smithers, the Toodoggone Gold Camp is being reborn as an existing gold exploration play with the recognition of the real mineral potential of the area. Well known for it's near surface bonanza type epithermal deposits, past exploration largely overlooked porphyry gold and transition type deposits.
At the close of the 1997 drill season a high grade polymetallic zone within a low grade envelope, was intersected at the Creek Zone by Antares Mining and Exploration Corporation and JV partner AGC Americas Gold Corp.
The Creek Zone is located on the J.D. claim block just below the tree line. During 1997 eight holes totalling 1476 m. of NQ core drilling was completed. Hole CZ97-08 intersected 3.016 oz. Au / ton, 2.69 oz. Ag / ton, 1.34% Cu, 0.46% Pb and 11.7% Zn in a new 4 m. wide zone consisting of near massive sulfide within a mineralized quartz carbonate stockwork seen in earlier holes.
The average uncut grade for the hole between 12 to 98 metres returned 0.125 oz. Au / ton.
The discovery was made based on the compilation of pre-existing data combined with careful field follow-up based on heavy mineral sampling, soil geochemistry and induced polarization surveys.
This upgraded the Creek Zone area from minor gold occurrence to a high priority drill target.
The zone is hosted by a shallow to moderate dipping sequence of altered andesitic flows to flow breccias of the Lower Jurassic Toodoggone Volcanics. Alteration is predominately propylitic (quartz / epidote / calcite) with local hematization around the sulfide intersection. Mineralization consists of coarse grained pyrite, sphalerite, chalcopyrite and galena. Low grade mineralization occurs within an apparently structurally controlled extensive quartz carbonate stockwork. High grade mineralization occurs as a massive sulfide replacement zone associated with faulting. Mineralization likely represents a transition zone between high level epithermal to lower level porphyry style mineralization.
The high grade zone appears to strike NNW along a high angle fault system. The Au soil geochem anomaly associated with the zone extends approximately 400 m. NNW within a larger 700 m. long coincidental Induced Polarization chargeability anomaly which appears open to the north and south.
A $1.5 million follow-up exploration program is planned for 1998.
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Regards,
Wayne |
