There’s no mine or even a definitive announcement of one, but new exploration results have a CEO predicting a Flin Flon-like mine life for a mineral district outside the city.
Foran Mining Corp. said Wednesday that exploration has confirmed and expanded massive sulphide mineralization near the McIlvenna Bay deposit, part of its Hanson Lake camp.
“Based on Foran’s exploration and discoveries of VMS [volcanogenic massive sulphide] mineralization around McIlvenna Bay, we believe the Hanson Lake camp will develop into a long-lived mining camp similar to Flin Flon and Snow Lake,” Patrick Soares, president and CEO of Foran, said in a news release.
Thunder zone
Foran said the latest mineralization was confirmed at the “Thunder zone” on its Balsam property. The Thunder zone is seven km southeast of McIlvenna Bay, which in turn is 65 km west of Flin Flon, in east-central Saskatchewan.
The company said a 2013 drill hole in a newly identified geophysical anomaly hit high-grade VMS mineralization in the Thunder zone. Results showed 4.1 per cent copper and 0.43 grams per tonne gold over 3.66 metres.
Drilling continued this winter with “thick intercepts” of copper- and zinc-rich VMS mineralization found in four of five holes, confirming a “significant” new blind discovery, Foran said.
Further drilling of the Thunder zone is needed to determine the extent of the deposit, with Foran evaluating plans for follow-up work.
The zone remains open along strike, where drilling to date has only begun to test the extent of the deposit, the company said.
Meanwhile, drilling is underway on the Bigstone deposit, 25 km west of McIlvenna Bay, with results expected in the coming weeks.
The Bigstone drilling targets a historic mineral resource. Past exploration there by Cameco, no longer considered reliable, showed some promising copper and zinc results.
Following the completion of this winter’s drilling, Foran plans to conduct borehole electromagnetic surveys on select drill holes from each of the areas explored.
A 50-line-km electromagnetic survey is scheduled for late March to early April of this year to explore prospective stratigraphy four to eight km north of McIlvenna Bay.
The Vancouver-based Foran has spent years touting McIlvenna Bay and late last year released a preliminary economic assessment on the property it termed “positive.”
No stock exchange, securities commission or other regulatory authority has approved or disapproved of the information supplied by Foran.
