Quebec Exploration

Abitibi

Modelling and Predictions

The Abitibi region is one of the richest greenstone belts in the World, hosting over 160 deposits of known tonnage and over 1800 showings of gold and base metals. The region has a long mining history and there remains an excellent potential for the discovery of significant VMS, Orogenic Gold or Porphyry type deposits. There are currently 23 active gold and basemetal mines in the province of Quebec. Of those 23, 17 are in the Abitibi region. As of July 2005, there were over 400 VMS type base metal occurrences and over 1350 Orogenic Gold type occurrences.

Moreover, the Abitibi region is particularly well suited for analysis by CARDS because of the large amount of information available. Specifically, the results of over 88,000 drill holes and a vast amount of geological, geophysical and lithochemical data is contained in DIAGNOS’ Abitibi database. Data gathering resulted in over 101 million data points with over 3,000 characteristics or variables. This large quantity of varied data allows CARDS to accurately model for several different metals of varying geological deposit types. To date, CARDS has been used to model for gold, copper, zinc and nickel mineralization as well as Kimberlite potential, in the Abitibi.

Variables used in Gold and Base Metal prediction
Mag-Corr-Residuel Intensity Alteration Minerals
Conductors Metals Analysis
Volcanic Rock Group I Lead Lake & stream
Volcanic Rock Group II Synvolcanic Plutons
Volcanic Rock Group III Sedimentary deposit
Felsic / mafic contact Silicification
Copper Lake & stream VMS Sulfurs
Epidotization Felsic Volcanism
ICHLORPYR Index Zinc till
Synvolcanic Veins Zinc Lake & stream
ISERPAR Index  

Mineral Occurrences
in the Abitibi region
Orogenic Gold VMS
Mines (Active & inactive) 99 58
Deposits of known tonnage 112 51
Worked deposits 638 184 +
Showings 518 106 +
Total 1367 400 +

Quebec – ranked 5th best place in the world for mineral exploration 2005/2006 – Fraser Institute

Abitibi – Amazing exploration Potential! – host to 17 of the 22 active gold and base metal mines in Quebec!

Several impressive deposits have been discovered over last ten years, many of which are now in the feasibility, pre-mining and mining stages.

Perseverance, a 4 Mt VMS deposit located in central Abitibi, NTS 32F13, has an average ore grade of 16.7% Zn, 1.2% Cu, 23g/t Ag and O.35g/t Au. Discovered in 2001 by Falconbridge, the mine is now in the Feasibility stage of development.

Canadian Malartic, a porphyry gold deposit located in NTS mapsheet 32D01, discovered in 1926 was mined from 1935-1965. The total production was 9.9 Mt @ 3.37 g/t Au and 2.5g/t Ag, producing 1.08 M oz of gold and 0.64 Mt of silver. Exploration from 1980 to 1988 by Lac Minerals ltée. lead to the further discovery of 8.16 Mt at 1.98 g/t Au. Recent drilling in the first half of 2006 by Osisko Exploration has lead to the estimation that the deposit could actually be as large as 100 Mt. Projections have been made by Analysts at Westwind Partners that the mine could go into operations as early as 2010.

Goldex, a 21.77Mt, 2.4g/t orogenic Au deposit owned by Agnico-Eagle ltée, located near Val D'Or Quebec in NTS map sheet 32C04, was initially explored and drilled in the late 1990's should go into operations in 2008.

Barry Gold Deposit, located in NTS map sheet (32G03) is a 269, 000 mt, 4.10g/t shear hosted mafic volcanic gold deposit. Discovered by Murgor Resources Inc in 2005, the deposit has an additional inferred resource of 450, 000 mt at 4.68g/t Au.

Doyon/Mouska Mines, owned and operated by Cambior, zones 50 and 60 were discovered in 1995 and the contact zone was discovered in 1997, increasing the cumulative reserves to 2.8 million tons at 6.4g/t Au.

Additional information in this section:

Contact us

For additional information on how CARDS can work for you, contact Mr Michel Fontaine at 450 678-8882 or toll free at 1 877 678-8882, ext. 222 or by Email at mfontaine@diagnos.com.