 |
Ronnberget Gold, Tellurium Project
The Ronnberget Gold and Tellurium Project (100% Gold-Ore) was acquired in September 2007 from a subsidiary of Lundin Mining Corporation. The exploration permits are adjacent to the Björkdal Gold Mine and lie on the east and south side of the Björkdal dome. The property hosts gold-bearing veins similar to Björkdal along with silicified and altered zones with disseminated copper and gold suggesting a porphyry style target.
Location and Access
The Ronnberget claim package purchased from Lundin Mining consists of 9 permits covering 3,452.5 hectares (14,452 acres or 34.5 square km). The permits wrap around the east and south boundaries of the Björkdal permits (previously acquired from Minmet). The two packages of permits total 7,834.2 hectares (32,793 acres or 78.34 square km).
The Ronnberget permits are located 30 km along paved highway NW from the city of Skellefteå and 750 km north of Stockholm. The permits are between 4 and 8 kilometers from the Bjorkdal Mine. Skellefteå is a modern city with numerous daily flights to Stockholm. The area has a long history of mining and strong economic ties to the industry. Developed infrastructure includes railway and paved highways connecting the community to all of Sweden. Low cost hydropower and a skilled labour force further support the industry. The climate in this area of northern Sweden is moderated by the Gulf Stream.
Property History
The Skellefteå Field mining district has been the focus of exploration for gold-rich polymetallic deposits since the discovery of the Boliden Gold Deposit in the mid-1920's. While developing the Björkdal gold deposit, Terra Mining collected surface till samples in the Ronnberget area, but did not continue with any other activities.
In 1989 the French company, Cogema, entered into a joint venture (SGJV) with an arm of the Swedish Government, NSG, to conduct exploration for gold in the Västerbotton County. Gold and tellurium anomalies were detected in surface tills during the early 1990's and follow-up work included mapping, geophysics, trenching and drilling of the till profiles.
In 1993, Cogema dissolved the SGJV and formed a new JV with the Boliden Mining Company to conduct gold exploration in Västerbotton. This JV conducted extensive, detailed exploration programs in the Ronnberget area. The work culminated in the drilling of approximately 100 diamond drill holes to test for Björkdal-styles of mineralization. The Boliden-Cogema JV was dissolved upon completion of the diamond drilling in 1997.
Lundin Mining acquired the concessions through their Swedish subsidiary -- North Atlantic Natural Resources AB. The permits were flown with airborne geophysics, but no follow-up work was completed.
In late 2007 Gold-Ore acquired 100% of the permits by issuing 250,000 units of Gold-Ore to Lundin Mining. Each unit consists of a common share and a share purchase warrant. Each warrant can be exercised to purchase an additional share of Gold-Ore at CDN$1.10 until September 28th, 2008. In addition, North Atlantic/Lundin retains a 2% net smelter royalty on any metal produced from the permits. Gold-Ore has a right of first refusal to purchase the royalty should North Atlantic wish to sell it.
Property Geology
The Ronnberget Property is underlain by the same sequence of rocks as the Björkdal Mine and the exploration models for both properties are similar.
The Björkdal/Ronnberget area is located in the eastern part of the Paleoproterozoic Skellefteå district. This 1.9 billion year old volcanic arc hosts close to 100 Zn-Cu-Au-Ag volcanic-hosted massive sulphide deposits (VHMS) of which 28 have been mined historically. The best known mine in this area is the famous gold-rich Boliden deposit which is located just 12 km from the Björkdal mine. The Skellefteå District covers an area 150 km by 50 km and is Europe's biggest gold belt.
The Skellefteå district consists of a lower volcanic sequence (Skellefteå Group) overlain by a younger sedimentary sequence (Vargfors Group). The 3 km thick Skellefteå Group is composed of mainly felsic volcanic rocks and the upper part of the Group hosts most of the VHMS deposits. The supracrustal rocks of the Skellefteå District were later cut by a variety of intrusions including the Björkdal dome.
The gold at Björkdal is associated with cm to m wide subvertical quartz veins within a biotite-altered granodiorite or intrusive dome. The gold mineralization is localized near the contact between the intrusive and the overlying Skellefteå Group. The veins mainly trend NE and NNE and terminate at the sediment-intrusive contact. The gold is found both as free milling gold and also associated with pyrite.
The Björkdal Deposit belongs to the class of gold deposits known as "Intrusion Related Gold Systems" or IRGS. This class of deposits includes some new multi-million deposits such as the Fort Knox mine (6.7 Moz Au), Pogo (5.1 Moz Au), Donlin Creek (23 Moz Au) and Dublin Gulch.
Gold-Ore has obtained and re-logged the Ronnberget drill core and early conclusions from this work point to a porphyry style copper and gold mineralization, in addition to the Björkdal-style gold-veins. The Company has commissioned reprocessing of the results from a 2000 GEOTEM /magnetic airborne survey focusing on responses in and around the Bjorkdal dome.
Exploration Plans
The Company is completing re-logging of the previous drill core and is formulating a plan for on-going exploratory program. This may include trenching to expose the mineralization along with diamond core drilling. Plans for Ronnberget will be announced shortly.
| | |
|
