Deep Hemlo hole is teaser for Noranda and Interlake

About five years and $6 1/2 million after they embarked on a joint venture to look for a deep-seated extension of the same formation which houses the Hemlo, Ont., gold mines, partners Noranda Exploration, International Interlake Industries (VSE) and Teck Corp. (TSE) have received some encouraging news.

It came in the form of a deep drill intersection at their 31-claim Hemlo property which assayed at 29.5 ft grading 0.258 oz gold per ton at a depth of 7,997 ft and 8,024 ft.

While Hole IL-6 also included 0.62 oz across 3.3 ft, operator Noranda Exploration doesn’t quite know what to make of this latest find.

Under the terms of a revised joint venture agreement, Noranda is earning a 60% interest in the property while International Interlake retains a 40 % net profits interest.

Located just west of Lac Minerals’ (TSE) Page Williams mine, it has already been tested with varying amounts of success by 12 holes. After relinquishing its right to be operator in 1985 Teck, still holds a minority interest (22% when last reported in The Northern Miner).

“The intersection was pulled from the same Moose Lake formation that contains the adjacent Page Williams, Golden Giant and David Bell mines,” said Jim Gibson Noranda Explorations’ manager of evaluations.

Whereas the Page Williams and Golden Giant orebodies are hosted in Mooseland’s hangingwall section, the IL-6 intersection occurred in the footwall part of the formation, he said.

However, the depth of this intersection means that the partners would have to find a considerable amount of material in order to justify sinking a shaft. Since Noranda was drilling through a fault zone, it has taken almost nine months to complete hole IL-6 and obtain the assay result.

According to Gibson, the next move is to test the intersection by wedging up and testing the up-dip extension of Hole IL-6.

“This could well be a flash in the pan but is is also possible that it could infer considerable up-plunge potential to one of the zones at the Page Williams mine,” he said. “We will start the next hole fairly soon.”