The Wanapatei anomaly is actually a coffee stain that showed up on a government geophysical map one day and since the 200 or so employees in 10 companies are all saying its real nobody wants to backdown as their careers are all on the line.
There is a high mag trend from Sudbury up to Quebec which follows the Grenville contact into Quebec. Along it are quite a number of showings and old mines. Some high grade zinc in silicates and the odd retrograde metamorphic thing that comes up sulfide on the Grenville side. The front and associated mag is obviously and old plate collision suture zone and is a prime hunting ground for all manner of sea bed vent associated deposits as the majority of Sudbury type deposits are. (Magmatists take note of your obsolescence here) In the Wanapatei Lake region there are many diabase hosted vein deposits in fracture systems of all metals. They transect the regional direction of shearing, so are tension fracture related. The plentiful nipissing diabase, once a prime harbinger of Ontario mineral resources but gets little respect today. It can harbour Silver and Platinum group elements in narrow disseminated sulfide bands near exsolution degassing areas of the melt in assocition with porphyrytic pyrrhotite, and chalcopyrite. North East of Sudbury in Cabot, Natal and Knight townships, Naldrett and Cabri catalogued for the GSC several new platinum arsenides and antimonides which associated with the unique intrusives in that area. These townships have never been explored for platinum group elements commericially. Inco drilled perhaps 8 million tons of 1.2 % nickel in two nearby deposits, Loon Lake, and Fawcett Township, drilled in conjunction with Fort Knox Gold. Inco as usual suppressed any mention of PGM's (Company policy since 1926) and the property lies fallow now. Still further north in the Kamiskotia Gabbroic complex in Montcalm Township, Otokumpu Oy drilled perhaps 25,000,000 tons of 1 % nickel. .5% copper (140 kilometres of drilling) and went underground with a large production ramp from 1994 to 1997. They have mothballed that operation but they told engineers in Timmins that they had significant platinum values. Otokumpu is on of the world's largest platinum refiners from Finland and is a private company. West of Timmins Cross Lake has intercepted platinum values in Sewell Towship and west of Timmins Band Ore got decent platinum grabs near Timmins Township. Swing into Kirkland lake and southwest of town there is a large diorite intrusion where 1/2 ounce platinum samples have been taken years ago.
The excitement in Sudbury recently is a new area that was withdrawn from staking a few years back. It never interested Inco because they felt that it had less chance for massive sulfides than Sudbury proper. But platinum group elements associate with the more disseminated type of deposits and usually have low copper and nickel. Inco would never get into the primary platinum mining business and hence ignored all such deposits. In fact in 50 years Inco never took a platinum assay underground despite producing some 200,000 ounces of the metals per year! Shebandowan in North West Ontario is more a platinum mine than anything else though and Inco refuses to abandon her. Northwester n Ontario from ThunderBay north is a continuation of the Stillwater group of rocks and has considerable potential as well. I would say there is the odd potentially commercial deposit in this trend which includes Dunka Road, (Stateside), and Lac De Isle, 40 miles north of Thunder Bay. The Thunder Bay stuff is associated with diabase and good platinum values have been reported for miles around.
So to answer your question, yes, diabasic rocks such as in Janes Township and east of there too may have significant surface mineable deposits.
One company in the Wanapatei region with some related deposits
is Flag Resources, the eternal bridesmaid of Sudbury drillers.
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