Jun 23 2016
Mineral Mountain Resources Ltd. is pleased to announce that the Company has increased its 100%-owned land position in the Rochford Gold District to 5,447 acres (2179 hectares) by staking an additional 37 unpatented lode mineral claims totaling 606 acres (242 hectares).
In all, the Company now owns a contiguous land position located in Lawrence and Pennington Counties totaling 345 unpatented lode mineral claims. The northern boundary of the Company's land holdings is located 18 km (11 mi.) south of the Homestake Mine deposit. The close similarities between the Homestake Mine and the Rochford District in host rock composition, structural style, metamorphic grade, and gold mineralization suggest that the Rochford District has the potential to contain a large gold resource.
The property covers four high priority gold targets that are situated within two structural corridors that host Homestake Ledge-type gold mineralization associated with banded iron formation documented by Noranda, Newmont, Western Mining and Homestake between 1982 and 1996. All four priority targets, if traced systematically down the limb fold plunge by diamond drilling are considered to be above average for the discovery of Ledge-type gold deposits. The four gold targets, three along the 5.5 km long Standby-South Standby-Lookout Mine Trend and the fourth along the 1 km long Cochrane Trend, require a well-planned drill program initially totaling 9,000 meters of drilling. (see release dated March 7, 2016)
The Rochford Gold District
Despite the similarities to Homestake, and compelling evidence for gold mineralization, the Rochford District has remained under explored. The Rochford Gold District is located approximately 26 kilometers south of the world's largest banded iron formation hosted gold deposit, the Homestake Mine, which produced nearly 40,000,000 ounces of gold averaging about 10.89 g/t Au (0.350 opt) over the life of the mine from 1876 to 2001.
The geology of the Rochford District is remarkably similar to that at the Homestake Mine with gold hosted in multiple deformed Proterozoic carbonate facies and local sulfide-facies iron formation that has typically been metamorphosed to cummingtonite/grunerite phyllites/schists and chlorite schists. There are numerous, relatively shallow past producing gold mines and prospects in the district that were developed in the late 1800's and early 1900's. Mineral Mountain's property package covers approximately a 9 km long segment of auriferous iron formation considered to have many geological and mineralogical aspects to the Homestake Mine 26 km to the northwest.
The Rochford District covers more than 78 square kilometers and has been explored intermittently by several major companies like Getty, Newmont, Noranda, Western Mining and Homestake Mining in the 20th century. The last serious exploration for the Rochford District was completed in 1997. This district appears to have been forgotten and/or overlooked especially after the closing of the nearby giant Homestake Mine in 2001. We believe that because Homestake was so dominant in the Black Hills for over 125 years, many explorers erroneously assumed that the gold belt been thoroughly explored.
Source: http://www.mineralmtn.com/