Rockland Minerals provides update on the Blue Lake Cu-Ni-PGM project situated in the southern Labrador Trough in Quebec. The Blue Lake diamond drill campaign is likely to commence on 1 July 2012. Cartwright Drilling and IOS Services Géoscientifiques will handle the field work.
Since 1950s, Rockland Minerals and Caracle Creek Consulting, an engineering firm, have been compiling essential information from more than 550 holes, which were drilled on the Cu-Ni-PGM historic resource at Blue Lake property. The Blue Lake sulfide deposits have double the copper content of nickel and host nickeliferous pyrrhotite ores. The tonnage was set up in 1989 and was 4.03 Mt at 0.84 g/t palladium and platinum, 0.52% nickel and 0.85% copper. Rockland Minerals intends to make this mineralization to comply with National Instrument 43-101 as early as possible.
Hollinger North Shore Exploration had discovered the Blue Lake sulfides in 1942. The initial holes were drilled in the 1950s, wherein Hollinger drilled 39 holes and 37 holes in 1967 and 1968, respectively and set up the first resource for the Blue Lake property. In 1985, Hollinger was acquired by La Fosse Platinum who drilled 400 holes. This drilling program almost doubled the original Hollinger resource. In 1989, a 350 m adit was done into the Blue Lake #1 lens to mine a metallurgical sample of 22t. Since that time, no work has been done at the Blue Lake property until Rockland Minerals optioned the project in November 2011.
At the Blue Lake #1, the underground work revealed the nature of the mineralization. According to a 1989 internal report, the channel sampling of the Blue Lake decline was performed and returned a typical grade which is 20% higher than the copper and nickel grade estimated from drill core study. The Blue Lake decline also revealed a soft chloritic layer at the bottom of the sulphide. The chloritic material averages 6.02 g/t palladium and 0.12 g/t platinum in contrast to 1.02 g/t palladium and 0.13 g/t platinum in the bulk sulfide.
Source: http://www.rocklandminerals.ca/