Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:CEM) has reported on exploration activity and plans for the Company's gold projects in Ontario and British Columbia.
Constantine has a 100% interest in three gold projects, lead by the flagship Munro-Croesus Project, a past-producing mine property that yielded some of the highest grade gold ever mined in Ontario. The Trapper Gold Project, host to a large gold in soil anomaly with no reported prior drilling, and the Phoenix Gold Project, south of the Timmins gold camp in Ontario, represent early stage exploration opportunities in promising gold environments. The Company intends to continue building upon its strong gold portfolio. With new results in hand, Constantine is gearing up for an active year of gold exploration.
Highlights from recent work include:
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Soil sampling at the Trapper Gold Project, in northwest British Columbia extends the high-tenor gold anomaly 1000 meters along trend, for a total length in excess of two kilometers. The soil anomaly includes multiple samples exceeding 1.0 g/t gold and averages 200 meters in width. Rock float samples collected over the anomaly by Constantine assayed up to 6.03 g/t gold, with historic sampling in the area assaying up to 33 g/t gold.
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New gold zones grading 7.86 g/t over 0.5 meters, 5.0 g/t over 0.5 meters, and 1.18 g/t over 12.25 meters were identified by re-logging and assaying holes drilled by prior owners on the Four Corners area of the Munro-Croesus Project, Ontario. Gold occurs within a previously un-sampled section of strong hydrothermal biotite alteration with associated minor quartz veining. A backhoe trenching program, designed to aid future drill targeting, is currently in progress in an area of old pits and trenches (1920-1930) with strong quartz veining and alteration.
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Four new claim units (65 ha) were acquired by staking in proximity to the past-producing, exceptionally high-grade Croesus mine property.
Munro-Croesus and Phoenix Gold Projects, Ontario
The Munro-Croesus Gold Project includes the 28 claim unit Croesus mine property (481 ha) and the neighboring 63 claim unit Four Corners property (1020 ha) located 1.2 kilometers to the east. The properties lie within the influence of the prolific Porcupine-Destor Deformation zone that is host to over 110 million ounces of gold and stretches from Timmins, Ontario for more than 200 kilometers into the Province of Quebec.
The Croesus mine was renowned for the spectacular high-grade gold it produced. Five gold samples from the Croesus vein held by the Royal Ontario Museum, weighing 85 pounds collectively, contain 480.7 ounces of gold or 11,310 oz gold per short ton (387,727 grams/tonne) – equal to 38.77 percent gold. The Croesus vein was mined up to an east-west trending fault that truncated the vein. Initial drilling by Constantine in 2008 and 2009 identified gold-bearing veins on the offset side of the fault (up to 83 g/t gold over 0.10 m) and new vein systems (e.g. 15.1 g/t over 1.00 m and 12.5 g/t over 0.46 m) at depth below the historic mine workings that share the same alteration, and stratigraphic and structural setting as the mined Croesus vein. With very few holes ever penetrating deeper than 100 meters on the property, the depth potential of the system remains virtually untested.
Current field work and planning is being carried out to prepare the Munro-Croesus Project for diamond drilling. A close spaced (12 - 15 m) pattern of drill holes is being considered to test for bonanza grade chutes within the newly identified vein structures. With some of the high grade chutes of the original mined vein material exceeding 20 to 30 percent by weight gold, there is good potential for similar as yet undiscovered mineralization to be detectable by off-hole geophysical methods, providing that hole spacing is optimized for target size. Downhole geophysical techniques are being evaluated as part of future drill programs.
In addition to the unique, exceptionally high-grade exploration opportunity in the immediate Croesus mine environment, Constantine is also evaluating plans for drilling other targets on the greater Munro-Croesus property and on the neighboring Four Corners property. The geological setting at Four Corners shares many similarities to classic Archean gold systems and past drilling on the property has documented up to 9.37 g/t gold over 1.25 meters, including 14.33 g/t gold over 0.68 meters in the southeast area of the property. Backhoe trenching, currently in progress, is focused on an area of historic pits within heavily quartz-veined and strongly iron-carbonate and fuchsite altered rocks in the northwest part of the property. This work is designed to provide a better understanding of the alteration and structural controls on mineralization for future drill targeting.
The Phoenix Gold Project is a large, 82 km2 (8200 ha) property that was staked to cover the projected westerly extension of the Matachewan-Kirkland-Larder Lake-Cadillac Break (host to over 70 million ounces of gold) based on new airborne magnetic data. The property shares key elements of the Timmins and Kirkland-Larder Lake Gold camps, with large multi-ounce float boulders documented in the region. Near term work on the Project will consist of prospecting, mapping, and drill target generation.
Trapper Gold Project, BC
The Trapper Gold Project is a recent greenfields acquisition (see news release, May 18, 2010) that lies 45 km north of the Golden Bear mine road, and 200 km south of the Yukon-BC border. The 3,756 hectare Property covers a large, high tenor gold-in-soil anomaly that, after recent sampling, now extends greater than two kilometers in length, averages 200 meters in width and remains open ended along strike. Gold occurs with elevated arsenic and antimony, and is associated with pervasive iron carbonate-silica+/-clay alteration that can be traced on surface for a distance of five kilometers. The gold-in-soil anomaly is characterized by greater than 100 ppb gold, and includes multiple samples in excess of 1000 ppb (1.0 g/t) including two samples yielding greater than 8.0 g/t gold. Large samples (10-20 kg) collected from strongly anomalous soil sites yielded numerous flakes of coarse visible gold after processing through a heavy mineral separator. Soil sampling to date has covered less than 10% of the Property.
Results from the 2010 program identified grab samples of rock float within the soil anomaly ranging from <5 ppb to 6.03 g/t gold. Results from previous programs include grab samples grading up to 18.0 g/t, 19.55 g/t and 33 g/t gold. Recent remote sensing analysis, utilizing satellite imagery, has documented regionally extensive alteration typical of epithermal and porphyry systems. Several of the newly defined alteration zones occur in areas with little or no prior documented work.
The Company is formulating exploration plans at the Trapper Gold Project for the second quarter of 2011. Recommended Phase I work includes expanding the soil grid, surface geophysics, trenching, prospecting and mapping, with the objective of refining drill targets for a Phase II program of drilling in mid-summer 2011.
Darwin Green P.Geo, Vice President for Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. and a qualified person as defined by Canadian National Instrument 43-101, has reviewed and approved the technical information contained in this release.
Source: Constantine Metal Resources Ltd.