Detour Lake Exploration: Regional
Dec 22, 2013
Detour Gold’s strategy is to create additional shareholder value through organic growth. Our discovery cost to date at the Detour Lake property is < $10/oz of gold in reserves. Our initial exploration focus has led to the discovery of a world-class low-grade gold deposit at Detour Lake. The Company has recently consolidated the area and now controls over 630 km2. Our exploration team has identified new opportunities that will potentially expand our reserve/resource base.
Block A Project
The Company has advanced the Block A near-surface deposit to the pre-feasibility stage and has deferred its completion to beyond 2013, given the current gold price environment.
The Block A near-surface deposit is located less than 1 kilometre northwest of the Detour Lake open pit. Detour Gold completed the acquisition of Trade Winds Ventures in December 2011 to acquire the remaining 50% of Block A it did not control and 100% of the Gowest property (located just west Block A). To date 180,000 metres of drilling has been completed on Block A, of which 112,189 metres was by Trade Winds between 2007 and 2011. In December 2010, Trade Winds reported an indicated resource of approximately 1.9 million ounces (70.8 million tonnes grading 0.85 g/t) and an additional 762,000 ounces in the inferred category (27.3 million tonnes grading 0.87 g/t).
In 2012, Detour Gold completed a 50,000 metre drilling program on a 40 by 40 metre spacing from sections 15,300E to 16,780E and initiated a pre-feasibility study. A number of drill holes were completed for geotechnical and metallurgical information. Given the recent decline in the gold price, the Company has deferred the completion of the pre-feasibility study to beyond 2013. A mineral resource update is expected in early 2014.
The geology of the Block A deposit is similar to Detour Lake. The east-west trending ‘M’ Zone hosts the majority of the mineralization and has been traced for approximately 1.5 kilometres. It consists of massive and pillow tholeiitic mafic volcanic flows and minor ultramafic volcanic flows. Gold mineralization is found mainly in swarms of steeply dipping quartz veins associated with chlorite alteration.
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Detour Lake Property - Geology map
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Detour Lake South Structure - Geology map
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Regional Exploration: Lower Detour Area
The Company continues to explore its large prospective land holdings. Since 2011, the focus is on the Lower Detour Deformation Zone (“LDDZ”), a major structural break, that is parallel and less than five kilometres south of Sunday Lake Deformation Zone (“SLDZ”), which hosts the Detour Lake deposit. The LDDZ has been traced over an approximate strike length of 40 kilometres and remains largely underexplored. In the first quarter of 2013, the Company completed 25,067 metres of drilling to test several targets along the eastern part of the LDDZ.
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Detour Lake Property - Geology map
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Detour Lake South Structure - Geology map
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A number of IP anomalies were tested resulting in the discovery of three sub-parallel east-west trending mineralized zones (Zone 75, Zone 58, and Zone 58N) within a wide kilometric corridor that is approximately 5 kilometres in length.
Two holes drilled on the same north-south section intersected significant gold mineralization at a depth of less than 150 metres.
Mineralization is hosted in quartz veins in a well-defined sheared zone referred to as Zone 75:
• 17.3 g/t over 4.4 metres (hole DLD-13-075)
• 6.19 g/t over 2.1 metres, 30 metres up dip of DLD-13-075 intersection (hole DLD-13-029)
Zone 75 corresponds to a well-defined IP anomaly traced over a strike length of 900 metres. Four historical drill holes intersected Zone 75, of which two had visible gold in quartz veins. Zone 75 is a high priority target and is open in all directions.
Approximately 1.8 kilometres west of those intersections, Zone 58 and Zone 58 North have been tested with 17 drill holes over a strike length of 300 metres. Visible gold was encountered in 10 of the holes.
The Company is highly encouraged by the results obtained in Zone 75 and is planning additional drilling in early 2014 to test the continuity of the gold mineralization.
Source: http://www.detourgold.com/projects/detour-lake-exploration-regional/default.aspx