Ontario Mineral Inventory

Ontario Geological Survey
Permanent Link to this Record: MDI42L04SE00013

Record: MDI42L04SE00013

General

Commodities

Primary Commodities: Zinc, Lead

Secondary Commodities: Silver, Gold, Cobalt

Location

Township or Area: Coughlan Lake Area

Latitude: 50° 1' 13.51"    Longitude: -87° 39' 38.26"

UTM Zone: 16    Easting: 452675   Northing: 5541110    UTM Datum: NAD83

Resident Geologist District: Thunder Bay North

NTS Grid: 42L04SE

Point Location Description: General

Location Method: Conversion from MDI

Access Description: Property is accessed by travelling 24 km east on Highway 11 from Beardmore to the intersection with Highway 801, the Paint Lake Road. Highway 801 is taken north for 46.5 km to a junction near Abitibi Camp 40, then 19 km east and NE on the Tashota Raod.

Exploration History

1949: Base metal showings were found by Conway and Stokes. 1950: Claims were staked by Coulee Lead and Zinc Mines Ltd. 1951: Headvue Mines Ltd. acquired the property, drilled 131 DDH totalling 9129 m and conducted an electromagnetic survey. 1968: the Chub-Stuart Syndicate optioned the property. 1969: claims were transferred back to Headway Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd. 1971-72: Noranda Exploration Company Ltd. optioned the property and conducted geological mapping, geochemical and geophysical surveys, and diamond drilling. 1973: Noranda conducted an IP survey and diamond drilling. 1974: Noranda’s option agreement ended. 1975: property restaked by Lynx – Canada Explorations Ltd. 2006: claims staked by a prospectors group and sold the property to Sage Gold Inc. 2008: Sage conducted EM and mag geophysical surveys, sampling and prospecting. 2010: Sage conducted AEM and aeromag surveys.

Assessment Work on File

Geology

Province: Superior

Geological Age: Archean  

Lithology

Lithology Comments

Mar 23, 2015 (Therese Pettigrew) - The property is underlain by Archean rocks largely comprising north-trending, steeply westerly dipping, mafic metavolcanic of basalt to andesite composition. These are intruded in several localities in the east by diabase sills and along the entire eastern property margin by the batholith of granite to quartz monzonite. Although rarely exposed, narrow bands of dacitic pyroclastic rocks are intercalated with the mafic flows and vary in texture from the lapilli tuffs and tuff breccias to blue quartz eye porphyry. Intermediate flows within the mafic metavolcanics are distinguished from the mafic volcanics by harder, apparently more siliceous character of the aphanitic surfaces and the blocky weathered surfaces. Enclosed within the mafic volcanics to the west, amygdaloidal intermediate flows occur on the hanging walls and footwalls of a 100-150 ft wide quartz-feldspar porphyry-dacite-quartz-muscovite schist unit, stratigraphically and lithologically correlatable to the Headway-Coulee felsic rocks, hosting the lead-zinc mineralization to the north. Well foliated to sheared amygdaloidal dacite flows underlie the western margin of the south half of the property and continuity is traced by sparse outcrops of dacitic to rhyodacitic pyroclastics to tuffaceous arkosic metasediments in the northwest. The felsic rocks are succeeded to the west b mafic volcanics which are in turn unconformably overlain by a polymictic metaconglomerate. Measured attitudes of schistocity in metavolcanic rocks are consistently NNW-SSE at 60-75 degrees westerly dip. This direction is sub-parallel to the bedding of intercalated cherty iron formation, generally striking 10-20 degrees more N-S than schistocity in unconformably succeeding volcanic flows.

Mineralization

Mineralization Comments

Mar 23, 2015 (Therese Pettigrew) - Mineralization consists of replacement bodies of quartz, sphalerite, galena and rare silver and cobalt minerals along more or less parallel shear zones in tuffaceous sediments. Several lenticular bodies are arranged en echelon fashion along a NE strike length of 1800 ft. The bodies dip 45-85NE and rake steeply to the SW. Diamond drilling has indicated 13 ore shoots having an average width of 13.2 ft (Shklanka, 1969). The 2008 Sage prospecting program yielded silver values ranging from 110-1050 gpt Ag (averaging 352.7 gpt Ag), gold values ranging from 0.1-3.9 gpt Au (averaging 1.0 gpt aU), Zn values ranging from 0.52-20.70% (averaging 5.3%) and Pb values ranging from 0.37-22.30% (averaging 3.55%). Cu values for these samples are generally less than 1% (Sage press release 03/12/09). The “Main Zone” of Hopkins (1951) is a zone of mild to intense shearing in felsic tuff which occurs over an average width of 150 m and a total length of 420 m. The zone has an approximately vertical dip and a plunge to the SW of about 45 degrees. The A Zone has two modes of occurrence: 1) Massive pyrite occurring interstitial to pyroclastic fragments in tuffaceous rocks, with minor amounts of sphalerite and galena associated with the pyrite, and 2) disseminated galena and sphalerite in sheared chloritoid-sericite schist and sheared felsic tuff. Hopkins (1951, p.7) indicated an average grade for this zone of 4.6% Zn and 1.45 opt Ag. In 1974, Noranda drilled HA-74-6 beneath the Headway A Zone and intersected a 30.3 m mineralized section consisting of stringers of pyrite-sphalerite. Assays of 0.96% Pb, 2.42% Zn, trace Au and 2.45 opt Ag over a 5.94 m section were reported. Noranda drilled hole HB-74-8 to test the SW extend of the B Zone and encountered mineralization assaying 0.69% Pb, 0.82% Zn, trace Au and 4.82 opt Ag over 3.0 m (Thurston, 1980).

Mar 23, 2015 (Q Unknown) - Holes H-35 and H-36 cut a 25 ft wide pyrrhotite-bearing porphyry which assayed no zinc, lead or gold and only 1 oz in silver. A heavy white hard fine-grained unidentified metallic mineral was encountered, so the core was later assayed for cobalt and assayed up to 0.3% cobalt across half of the 25 ft width. Geophysical work has also indicated this body to be 1600 ft long. Hole H-43, 50 ft SW of H-42, cut a total width of 72 ft of rhyolite porphyry, probably obliquely. 22 ft of this assayed 0.20% cobalt (possible ore). Hole H-44 cut 11 ft of massive pyrrhotite and pyrite, which caused the anomaly. It contained no zinc, lead, silver, gold, nor nickel, but assayed 0.10% cobalt.

Mineral Record Details

Mineral Zones - Size and Shape

References

Mono - Copper, nickel, lead and zinc deposits of Ontario

Publication Number: MDC012 Page: 333-334  Date: 1969

Author: Shklanka R.

Publisher Name: Ontario Dept. of Mines

Location:

MonoMap - Geology of the northern Onaman Lake area, District of Thunder Bay

Publication Number: R208 Page: 49-54  Date: 1981

Author: Thurston P.C.

Publisher Name: Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

File - Resident Geologist Mineral Deposit Files

Publication Number: Min Dep Date: 1996

Author:

Publisher Name:

Location: Thunder Bay RGP

Mono - Geology of the north Onaman area, District of Thunder Bay

Publication Number: OFR5197 Page: 82-85  Date: 1976

Author: Thurston P.C.

Publisher Name: Ontario Division of Mines

Location:

Map - Geology and Tectonostratigraphic Assemblages, eastern Wabigoon Subprovince, Ontario

Publication Number: P3449 Scale: 1:250,000    Date: 2002

Author: Stott G.M., Davis D.W., Parker J.R., Straub K.H., Tomlinson K.Y.

Publisher Name: Geological Survey of Canada, Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

Map - Onaman Lake, Thunder Bay District

Publication Number: M2411 Scale: 1:31,680    Date: 1979

Author: Thurston P.C.

Publisher Name: Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

Map - Geological series, north Onaman area (western half), District of Thunder Bay

Publication Number: P0846 Scale: 1:15,840    Date: 1976

Author: Thurston P.C., Andrews A.J., Asbury B.C.

Publisher Name: Ontario Division of Mines

Location:

Map - Precambrian Geology of the South-Central Onaman-Tashota Greenstone Belt

Publication Number: P3352 Scale: 1:50,000    Date: 1996

Author: Stott G.M., Morrison D.R., Gale V., Wachowiak N.

Publisher Name: Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

Map - Progress Report on Onaman Property of Headway Red Lake Gold Mines Ltd.

Publication Number: Date: 1951

Author: Hopkins, P.E.

Publisher Name:

Location: in MDI file in Thunder Bay RGP office

Folio - Coughlan Lake area, District of Thunder Bay

Publication Number: GDIF026 Date: 1997

Author: Thunder Bay RGO

Publisher Name: Ontario Geological Survey

Location:

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