Mallard
Mallard (Gold)
- Ownership: Part of the South Timmins Mining JV with Fancamp Exploration (75% Platinex, 25% Fancamp)
- Location: Mallard township, Ontario, Canada
- Land package: 5,104 ha
- Target commodities: Gold
Summary
Heenan Mallard is a highly prospective gold property on the Ridout Deformation Zone west of Iamgold’s Côté Gold.
- Historical discovery made by Noranda in 1985 at Mallard’s River and Camp zones. A 12-hole drill program returned several excellent intercepts including 5.04 g/t Au over 3.69 m in drillhole BE-85-1, 6.62 g/t Au over 1.82 m in hole BE-85-3, and 5.31 g/t Ay over 3.82 m in drillhole BE-85-6.
- Two high priority gold targets have been identified including:
- the River and Camp zones previously drilled by Noranda at Mallard
- an undrilled zone along the Ridout shear at Mallard with a coincident soil and IP anomaly
- It is probable there are other gold zones on the property including an area drilled by Fancamp in 2020 which returned narrow high grade intersections within wider anomalous zones
- Mallard is located on a large magnetic anomaly that is associated with the Woman Lake Iron formation and other magnetic lithologies located on the SE corner of the Swayze volcanic belt. The Swayze magnetic anomaly shows signs of hydrothermal alteration, which in combination with the associated gold mineralization at Mallard, makes the property a very attractive gold target.
- Prospecting, geological mapping, soil sampling and geophysical surveys were carried out at Mallard by Fancamp in 2019-2020
- Limited drilling by Fancamp at Mallard in 2020 encountered mineralization in most holes. Drill hole MA19-07 intersected strongly altered metasediments that returned anomalous gold values over a sample length of 17 m, including 4.61 g/t Au over 0.24. Drill hole MA19-08 intersected a low angle 15 cm wide quartz vein that returned 6.32 g/t Au over a sample length of 0.40 m. It is located within an 11.3 m wide zone of strong pervasive silicification and quartz veining.
- Neighbours include Northern Superior Resources, GFG Resources and IamGold. South claims at Mallard abut Iamgold claims
Location and Access
The Mallard property is located in Mallard township approximately 110 km southwest of Timmins and 170 km northwest of Sudbury. The property can be accessed by truck and ATV through the Mallard, Sultan Industrial and Sultan roads that intersect Highway 144.
Geology and Mineralization
On a regional scale the property is located within the Swayze greenstone belt, part of the western Abitibi Subprovince. The Swayze greenstone belt is bound to the north by the Nat River granitoid complex, to the west by the Kapuskasing Structural Zone, the south by the Ramsey-Algoma granitoid complex, and the east by the Kenogamissi granitoid complex. Volcanic and sedimentary rocks range in age from 2731 to 2690 Ma, whereas the intrusive rocks range in age from 2740 to 2660 Ma. The volcanic and sedimentary rocks form an upward-facing, upward-yuonging stratigraphic sequence that is complexly folded and faulted (Heather et al, 1996).
Mallard
The geology of the Mallard property is primarily NW-trending mafic volcanic sequences with intercalated bands of intermediate to felsic volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks and minor iron formation and metasedimentary rocks.
The northeast portion of the claim block consists of mafic, strongly magnetic intrusive rocks, and further east, granitic rocks of the Kenogamissi granitoid complex. Regionally the property straddles the southern limb of the Women River anticline. It is clear from the regional airborne magnetic surveys of the OGS and others that there is a major break in the magnetic characteristics of rocks in the northeastern half of the property relative to rocks in the southwestern portions.
On the northern limb of the Women River anticline this magnetic contrast is marked by a significant thickness of magnetite iron formation, known as the Women River iron formation, which marks the stratigraphic top of the earliest sequence of volcanic rocks. It divides overlying mainly mafic volcanic rocks of the October Lake formation to the southwest from underlying, calc-alkaline, felsic to intermediate volcanic rocks of the Strata Lake formation. The Strata Lake formation, occurs within the upper portions of the Marion Group which is thought to correlate with the Deloro assemblage of the southern Abitibi belt, based on U-Pb geochronology, (van Breemen, et.al, 2006).
On the southern limb, high magnetic signatures are in part, more likely due to gabbroic to dioritic intrusive rocks and older mafic volcanic rocks of the Rush River and Yeo formations. Iron formations, and the underlying Strata Lake felsic volcanic rocks appear to be much thinner and discontinuous on the southern limb. Iron formations do appear in some drilling done within, and just to the north of the property, and those that have been drilled appear to have anomalous gold content. A particularly good example occurs in the AIM drill hole, AIM-83-5, near the top of the hole, where approximately 16.5 metres of cherty iron formation contained a weighted average of 350 ppb gold. Wahl (1976) drilled 32 metres of lean iron formation just to the north of the property, but did not submit geochemical analyses.
However, much of the gold mineralization reported from past drilling is associated with weakly to moderately foliated, felsic porphyritic rocks or felsic tuffs which appear to occur as discontinuous wedges within shear zones in mafic to intermediate volcanic rocks. The mineralization is often reported to be contained within quartz- carbonate veining crosscutting these rocks. It has been speculated by a number of authors that there have been multiple stages of quartz, and/or quartz-carbonate veining but there is insufficient information to conclude which phase of veining is responsible for the gold mineralization (Flanagan, 2018).
The Ridout Deformation Zone passes through the southwestern portion of the Property. This deformation zone is postulated to be the western extension of the Cadillac Larder Lake Deformation Zone, and hosts the Cote Lake Gold Deposit located approximately 15 km east of the Property, and the past producing Jerome Mine located approximately 6 km south of the Property.
