Ontario Mineral Inventory

Ontario Geological Survey
Permanent Link to this Record: MDI000000002139

Record: MDI000000002139

General

Commodities

Primary Commodities: Palladium, Platinum

Secondary Commodities: Gold, Nickel, Copper

Location

Township or Area: Lac Des Iles Area

Latitude: 49° 10' 39.37"    Longitude: -89° 36' 28.8"

UTM Zone: 16    Easting: 309933   Northing: 5450474    UTM Datum: NAD83

Resident Geologist District: Thunder Bay South

NTS Grid: 52H04NE

Point Location Description: Trench

Location Method: Field Visit with GPS

Access Description: The Lac des Iles Mine property is located approximately 90 km northwest of the city of Thunder Bay. Access to site is provided by travelling 94 km north along Highway 527 to the Lac des Iles Mine Road and then travelling west for 16 km to the mine site. The North VT Rim Zone is located immediately to the northeast of the Roby Pit.

Exploration History

1998: Prospecting, stripping/trenching, channel sampling, geological mapping, geophysical surveys by North American Palladium Ltd. 2011-2013: Trenching, grab and channel sampling, shallow diamond drilling, completion of NI 43-101 Mineral Resource estimate by North American Palladium Ltd.

Assessment Work on File

Geology

Province: Superior

Subprovince: Wabigoon

Terrane: Marmion

Geological Age: Archean   Geochronological Age: 2699 Ma   Geochron. Age Ref.: Stone and Davis, 2006

Lithology

Lithology Comments

Dec 18, 2017 (Therese Pettigrew) - Mapping of the stripped areas show that the North VT Rim mineralization is hosted in a varitextured gabbro unit which differs from the known pyroxenite-related Roby Zone. The varitextured gabbro is a heterogeneous mixture of gabbroic textures, ranging from fine-grained to locally pegmatitic, with greater than 20% textural variability. It is greyish-green to greenish-grey in colour and locally hard to soft and occasionally weakly magnetic (AFRI 20000008857).

Mineralization Comments

Dec 18, 2017 (Mark Puumala) - The following description of the North VT Rim Zone is excerpted from the Lac Des Iles Mine NI 43-101 report dated April 20, 2015. The North VT Rim Zone is a >2 km long, east- to northeast-striking mineralized zone consisting of sheared and altered varitextured gabbro and heterolithic gabbro breccia and subordinate, boudinaged melanorite layers, mafic dikes, aplitic to pegmatitic granitic veins and quartz veins. Palladium grades are extremely variable within the North VT Rim Zone and to date no mineral reserves have been declared. Exploration has largely been restricted to trenching and shallow drilling particularly in the westernmost end of the North VT Rim subzone where a small near-surface mineral resource was defined in 2013 (McKinnon et al., 2014). The average grade and width of this initial resource is approximately 2 g/t of palladium and 3 to 8 m, respectively. Palladium mineralization is generally developed within a few metres to tens of metres to the north of the Equigranular Gabbro unit and tens of metres to the south of the northern margin of the Mine Block Intrusion. A set of conjugate faults and shear zones has modified locally developed primary magmatic layering within the North VT Rim Zone. Extreme grade variability characterizes most of the documented portions of the zone with grades ranging from less than 1 g/t to 63 g/t palladium. High-grade palladium mineralization is commonly associated with both northwest-striking and east-northeast striking shear zones. In addition, some of the higher-grade assays reported to date are hosted by narrow (less than 1 m thick) melanorite bands. In contrast to the Roby and Offset zones, there is no significant correlation between copper and palladium grades in the North VT Rim Zone. Also, the zone appears to have a much higher proportion of braggite (PdS) that is also much coarser grained (tens to hundreds of microns in length) than the PGMs observed in both the Roby and Offset zones (Huminicki, 2013). A distinctive feature of the North VT Rim Zone palladium mineralization is the absence of visible sulphides and very low copper and nickel abundances.

Mineral Record Details

References

Publication - Amended and Restated NI 43-101 Technical Report for Lac des Iles Mine; A Preliminary Economic Assessment of the Mine Expansion Plan

Publication Number: 2015 NI 43-101 Date: 2015

Author: Peck, D., Decharte, D., Penna, D., Roney, C., Young, B., Duinker, R.

Publisher Name: North American Palladium

Location: SEDAR

Map - Precambrian Geology, Lac des Iles Area

Publication Number: P3532 Scale: 1:50,000    Date: 2003

Author: Stone D., Fell M., Daley A., Schnieders B.R., Scott J.F., Nielsen P., Wagner D.

Publisher Name: Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

Publication - Feasibility Study Incorporating the Life of Mine Plan for Lac des Iles Mine

Publication Number: 2017 NI 43-101 Date: 2017

Author: Buss, B., Roney, C., Peck, D., Decharte, D., Marrs, G., Canosa, J., et al.

Publisher Name: Nordmin for North American Palladium

Location: SEDAR

Publication - Field Trip 3 - Lac des Iles Mine; In: 58th Annual Meeting Institute on Lake Superior Geology, Field Trip Guidebook, Institute on Lake Superior Geology 2012, v. 58, pt. 2, p. 56-66

Publication Number: ILSG v. 58 Date: 2012

Author: Smyk, M., and Corkery, J.

Publisher Name: ILSG

Location:

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For detailed information regarding this mineral record please contact the Thunder Bay South Resident Geologist District Office