Aguasabon Lake Property
Location and Access
The 104 unit Aguasabon Lake property is located bewteen Aguasabon Lake and Owl Lake in the Thunder Bay Mining Division. It is accessible from Terrace Bay via the Kimberly Clark bush road that leads to Longlac.
Geology and Mineralization
The rocks of the area are Pre-Cambrian in age and consist of a narrow band of Keewatin-type lavas and pyroclastics bordered by a narrow fringe of sediments and which are intruded by granite, porphyry and diorite.
A molybdenite zone has been exposed in a series of trenches on the west side of a hill for approximately 30 meters. The molybdenite mineralization is within a quartz-rich zone of a granite dyke. Both the mineralized zone and the granite dyke strike in an east-west direction, the width of the molybdenite mineralization varies from 0.3 to 1.0 meters. The granite is enclosed by intermediate tuffaceous sediments which contain an appreciable amount of disseminated pyrite, and massive pyrite and pyrrhotite occur in the granite adjacent to the molybdenite mineralization. The granite is pegmatitic in character, consisting principally of quartz and feldspar with a predominance of quartz. The vein consists of glassy quartz and is well mineralized with pyrite and molybdenite. The molybdenite forms high-grade sections within the vein. Flakes of molybdenite were also observed to occur within the granite, but the mineralization is widely scattered.
Where the quartz vein enters the volcanics to the east, considerable gossan has been formed, in some places a few centimeters thick. The volcanics to the south of the granite dyke have also been heavily sheared in an east-west direction and contain a small amount of pyrite which have also produced patches of gossan within the volcanics. A self potential survey (Empire Explorations, 1960) of this area revealed anomalous conditions for a length of 120 meters in an east-west direction, coinciding with the sulphide mineralization exposed in the pits.
Approximately 400 meters west-southwest of the molybdenum showing, two parallel, approximately east-west striking quartz veins occur. Both are mineralized with coarse pyrite, chalcopyrite and local sphalerite. Both veins have a sheared, slightly banded appearance. A breccia stockwork occurs on the north side of the north vein.
During the course of geological mapping by Rod Barber in 1998, a band of pyritic schists was found within Quetico sediments. Most exposures within this band are highly gossanous. The band is approximately 50 meters wide and was traced for approximately 300 meters. It is lost under overburden at each end. Sericite-quartz-biotite schist is the predominant rock type, with local quartz-sericite-pyrite schist. The pyrite is mainly fine-grained and disseminated, in amounts of 5-10% but locally forming massive stringers and accounts for up to 20% of the rock. One sample, noted as having fine sphalerite mineralization or "sphalerite stain" returned a slightly anomalous value of 492 ppm zinc. A value of 230 ppm zinc was obtained from a siliceous chert unit near the southern edge of the sediment package.
Previous Work
The property was first explored in 1960 by Empire Explorations. They conducted geophysical and geological surveys, trenching and packsack diamond drilling. In 1965, Martin-Hunt Mining performed an EM survey and drilled three holes into the property's moly showing. In 1968, Cowan preformed mechanical stripping/trenching and cobra diamond drilling.
The property was explored on three occasions in 1998 by one of the current owners. In May of that year, several old pits (probably 1960 vintage) were located. Eight rock samples were taken from these old workings. One of the sampled areas from a brecciated quartz vein of undetermined width, returned the following results (2.70 % zinc, 0.69 % copper, 4.98 g/t silver and 0.13 % lead from sample 98-8). A second area sampled a historic moly showing and returned 0.76% Mo from sample 98-11.
Later that month, the property was visited again to collect additional samples from the base metal showing and to stake 32 claim units to cover the area of interest. Additional assays confirmed the earlier results (1.17% zinc, 0.69% copper and 1.2 g/t silver from sample 98-18).
The property was re-visited in August of the same year and accompanied by Rod Barber, of New Millenium Consulting. Another showing was found approximately twenty meters south of the base metal showing which returned (6.05 % copper from sample 98-51). This sample was from a two-meter wide quartz vein that we managed to trace along strike for 400 meters to the west, where sampling returned values up to 0.75 % copper from sample 98-47. Historical research indicates a single drill hole into the vein near sample 98-51 intersected 1.52 meters of 5.8 g/t gold (Empire Explorations, 1960).
The claims were allowed to lapse due to poor market conditions but re-staked in 2010 as a result of improved metal markets. The property was significantly increased in size in July, 2011.
Conclusions
While both showings are contained in quartz veins at or near the contact with iron rich sediments, it is possible that the base metal mineralization found in these veins has been re-mobilized from the surrounding host rocks. The discovery lies at the contact between the Quetico and Wawa belts and could represent VMS (Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide) mineralization from the underlying Wawa metavolcanic sequence. It is important to note that the Winston Lake Zinc Mine lies just 16 miles to the west in the same greenstone belt. Additional exploration is warranted along this trend of base metal enrichment. The molybdenite showing and the copper-zinc-lead-silver-gold showings are worthy of follow-up work. The eastern claim contains no less than three mineral occurrences within 400 meters of each other. Significantly, prospecting of the high-grade copper showing has traced the vein for 400 meters along strike. An induced polarization survey should be considered to locate additional molybdenum mineralization and determine the full strike length of the base metal/gold occurrences.
