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Geology and Mineralization

Nov 12, 2014



The Rainy River Gold Project has attracted exploration interest since 1967; however, deep cover hampered exploration efforts and thus limited interest in the area.
 
History
Between 1994 and 1998 Nuinsco Resources Limited drilled a series of widely spaced reverse circulation drill holes, defining a fifteen kilometre long “gold-grains-in-till” dispersal train emanating from a thickly overburden-covered, six square kilometre “gold-in-bedrock” anomaly. Following up with diamond drill programs, Nuinsco made the initial 17 Zone discovery in 1994. In June 2005, Rainy River Resources Limited acquired a 100% interest in the project from Nuinsco Resources Limited.
 
Regional and Local Geology
The Rainy River Gold Project falls within the 2.7 billion year Rainy River Greenstone Belt that forms part of the Wabigoon Subprovince. The Wabigoon Subprovince is a 900 kilometre long east-west trending area of komaiitic to calc-alkaline metavolcanics that are in turn succeeded by clastics and chemical sediments. Granitoid batholiths have intruded into these rocks, forming synformal structures in the supracrustals that often have shear zones along their axial planes.
 
The Wabigoon Subprovince basement lithologies were overlain by Mesozoic (Jurassic and Cretaceous) sediments and were subjected to deep lateritic weathering followed by Quaternary glaciation. Limited preservation of the Mesozoic cover sediments and saprolite occurs in localized palaeo-lows.
 
The Wabigoon basement rocks and remnant Mesozoic cover sediments are overlain by Labradorian till of northeastern provenance. This till has been found to contain anomalous concentrations of gold grains, auriferous pyrite and copper-zinc sulphides. It is overlain by a glaciolacustrine clay and silt horizon and by argillaceous and calcareous Keewatin till of western provenance.
 
The Rainy River Gold Project is primarily underlain by a series of tholeiitic mafic rocks that are structurally overlain by calc-alkalic intermediate to felsic metavolcanic rocks. Intermediate rocks (dacites) host most of the gold mineralization. At a regional scale, the strongest and earliest deformation event produced a well-defined penetrative fabric. This foliation is approximately parallel to the trend of the metavolcanic rocks that strike at approximately 120 degrees and dip fifty to seventy degrees to the south. Structural geology studies by SRK suggest that the current geometry and plunge of the gold mineralization is the result of high strain deforming features associated with gold mineralization and rotating the mineralization plunge parallel to the stretching direction.
 
Deposit Types and Mineralization
At least two stages of gold mineralization exist in the Rainy River Gold Project:
 
Early (low to moderate grade) gold mineralization associated with sulphide (pyrite-sphaleritechalcopyrite-galena) stringers and veins and disseminated pyrite in quartz-phyric volcaniclastic rocks and conglomerate; and Late (high-grade) gold mineralization associated with quartz-pyrite-chalcopyrite-gold veins and veinlets.
 
Both styles of gold mineralization have been progressively overprinted by deformation. The gold mineralization is interpreted as a hybrid deposit type consisting of an early gold-rich volcanogenic sulphide mineralization overprinted by shear-hosted mesothermal gold mineralization.
 
In addition to the gold mineralization, the project also contains nickel, copper and platinum group metals sulphide mineralization associated with a differentiated ultramafic-mafic intrusion. That magmatic-hydrothermal mineralization occurs within the main auriferous zones and crosscuts the volcanogenic sulphide mineralization and the later mesothermal gold mineralization associated with the regional deformation.

Source: http://www.newgold.com/properties/projects/rainyriver/Geology-and-Mineralization/default.aspx

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