Bozema Lake Property
Location and Access
The Bozema Lake property, comprising of 185 claim units, is approximately 225 kilometers northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario. The TransCanada highway, electrical power lines and the Canadian Pacific Railway lie immediately south of the property. The claims are located between the towns of Terrace Bay and Marathon which can provide all supplies and manpower needed for exploration and development. Marathon is situated on a deep water port on Lake Superior.
Regional Geology
The property lies within the Schreiber-Hemlo greenstone belt and represents a portion of the Abitibi-Wawa Subprovince of the Superior Province. The Abitibi-Wawa Subprovince is a supracrustal east-west trending metavolcanic-metasedimentary sequence which has been intrude by granite-syenitic plutons and metagabbroic dikes and sills. The belt hosts the Hemlo gold deposit approximately 100 kilometers to the east and the Winston Lake base metal mine 55 kilometers to the west.
The Schreiber portion of the belt is approximately 70 kilometers long and 25 kilometers wide. The western portion of the belt is composed of two limbs, separated by the Crossman Lake Batholith, which form an east-west trending anticline. The northern limb, the Big Duck Lake volcanic belt is approximately 35 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide, while the southern limb is approximately 50 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide. The property is situated in the southern limb of the belt.
The metavolcanic rocks within the Schreiber-Hemlo belt vary from calc-alkalic pyroclastics, breccias, tuffs, flows, porphyritic flows, schists and gneisses to mafic, iron-rich tholeiites which include pillowed and massive flows, tuffs, schists and gneisses. The metasedimentary rocks consist of graded turbidites, wackes, mudstones, schists, paragneisses, minor conglomerates and iron formation. Sulphide-facies iron formation and ferruginous cherts form good marker horizons and predominates in the Schreiber-Terrace Bay area. Numerous felsic batholiths, plutons, stocks and porphyry dikes, including the Terrace Bay Batholith intrude the supracrustal rocks. The supracrustal rocks have been metamorphosed under low-grade (greenschist facies) conditions in the Schreiber-Jackfish area, under medium-grade (amphibolite facies) in the Fishnet Lake area and medium to high grade (upper amphibolite) facies in the northern part of the project area. The supracrustal rocks have undergone up to 4 periods of deformation, with evidence of multiple or complex folding events. Large-scale faulting is easily recognized from air photos. Proterozoic(Keweenawan) rocks are represented by diabase dikes and sills, and intrusive rocks such as alkalic and carbonatite complexes as the Coldwell and Killala alkalic complexes and the Prairie Lake carbonatite, as well as mafic to felsic dikes.
Property Geology
The geology of the property is characterized by east trending, intermediate to felsic pyroclastics, flows and tuffs, bounded to the south by metabasalts and granite to the north. Much of the property was mapped at reconnaissance scale during the spring and summer of 1996 (Clark, 1996; Needham, 1996). These mapping programs explored a potassium radiometric anomaly brought to attention by Shevchenco, Placer Dome Canada (1996). The anomaly is approximately 6 kilometers long and up to 1 kilometer wide and is characterized by whole rock geochemical data revealing an alteration zone exhibiting two dominant patterns:
1. extensive sodium depletion, accompanied by silica and potassium enrichment, and
2. sodium enrichment coupled with silica enrichment and potassium depletion.
Previous Work
The exploration records for the property contained within the Resident Geologist Assessment files housed in Thunder Bay indicate that exploration has been sporadically completed since 1896. Gold exploration in the area dates back to the late 1900's when the Empress Mine (Syine Township) and Fire Mountain (Tuuri Township) were located. Previous exploration work completed on and near the Bozema Lake property includes:
1955: Noranda Mines Ltd. completed a ground electromagnetic survey on a claim block covering Spider Lake within the present claims. No follow-up work was reported.
1963: Roman Corp. completed a ground horizontal loop electromagnetic survey on a claim block covering Spider Lake within the present claim block. The survey failed to locate significant anomalies.
1981: Gulf Minerals drilled four holes in the Bozema Lake area, within the current property holdings). One of the drill holes (81-33-2-1) intersected 10 meters of 8.6 % Zn, including 4.7 m @16.9 % Zn.
1988: Noranda Exploration Company Ltd. completed a mapping and lithogeochemistry program over a claim block, south of Spider Lake, within the present claim block. The survey outlined a sodium depletion zone but follow-up work is not reported.
1994: Echo Bay Mines Ltd. completed a geological recon program on the property. A total of 477 samples were taken and analyzed for gold. The work was completed on traverses accessed by helicopter or roads.
1995: Clark-Eveleigh Consulting completed a four day prospecting program on the property. A total of 7 samples were taken and assayed for gold. Five of the samples were also assayed for copper, lead, zinc and silver.
2002: RJK Minerals drilled two diamond drill holes (S02-2 and 3) highlighting that the Na and Ca in the core was almost totally depleted, indicating a strong alteration system. The Zn/Pb ratios encountered were similar to those of the Geco deposit located to the northeast and are typical of many VMS deposits in pyroclastic terrains. Silver and gold was also strongly correlated more strongly with Cu than with Zn or Pb. This also is typical of higher temperature VMS systems and indicated that the area drilled is in a classic VMS setting. The better of the two holes, S0-2, intersected 0.6 meters of 4.2% Zn, 0.46% Cu, 0.27% Pb and 48.1 g/t Ag; and 0.4 meters of 5.0% Zn, 0.16% Cu, 0.28% Pb and 18.1 g/t Ag.
2005: Phoenix Matachewan Mines completed eleven drill holes totalling 1,683 metres targeting two of eleven highly prospective combined geophysical and geochemical targets identified on the property. Analytical results returned very anomalous, widespread zinc mineralization, peaking at 7% Zn over 1.2 metres (at 121 metres down hole) in DDH PS0507 in an extensive zone of strongly zinc mineralized rock that averaged 0.58 per cent Zn over 39 metres. In addition, surface geochemical sampling results returned up to 23.5% zinc and 3.1% copper in outcrops.
Conclusions
The property is underlain by a package of intermediate to felsic metavolcanics intercalated by minor metasedimentary rocks and mafic metavolcanics. This package of supracrustal rocks is intruded by a quartz feldspar porphyry which has been traced for approximately 3 kilometers along strike. A zone of sodium depletion (the potassium radiometric anomaly of Shevchenko, 1996) extends for over 6 kilometers through the property. The alteration zone bears similarities, geologically and geochemically, to the Hemlo gold deposit some 100 kilometers to the east (Shevchenco, Placer Dome, 1996):
· The Bozema Lake property hosts a package of intermediate to felsic metavolcanics which is up to 3 kilometers thick. The presence of course felsic fragments suggests a proximity to a felsic volcanic center.
· The presence of a major quartz feldspar porphyry, itself sodium depleted, adds to the interpretation of the proximity of a volcanic center.
· The zone of alteration is widespread and characterized by sodium depletion, potassium and silica enrichment, as well as zones of potassium depletion and sodium enrichment or depletion.
· Sericite is a common alteration product locally occupying 15% of rock volume.
· Many felsic rocks contain blue quartz eyes suggesting metasomatic silica.
Whole rock geochemical data indicates the strongest alteration, in terms of sodium depletion and silica enrichment is spatially associated with the boundaries of the quartz feldspar porphyry. This zone also hosts a relative abundance of felsic agglomerate. These factors would suggest that the quartz feldspar porphyry represents a focal point of hydrothermal alteration and mineralization. In addition, there are a number of EM conductors associated with the northern contact of the quartz feldspar. These conductors are coincident with the zone of strong sodium depletion and silica enrichment. These features make the Bozema Lake property an attractive exploration target.
