Nov 3 2017
Tarku Resources Ltd. is pleased to announce the start of exploration work on its wholly owned Apollo and Atlas gold and base metals projects and situated 50 kilometres east of Matagami in the Eeyou Istchee James Bay territory.
The contiguous projects are covering 104 km2 along a regional gold structure named the Rivière Waswanipi Shear Zone (RWSZ), a geological setting which Tarku interprets as similar to the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone hosting the Detour Lake mine. The planned work program includes a till, humus and rock samples program which aims to validate the historical results including a value of 4.94 g/t in the heavy mineral fractions in order to identify priority areas along the RWSZ as well as other promising structures and contacts over a distance of 19 kilometres.
Exploration work
The exploration work on the Apollo (Au) and Atlas projects (Au-Ag-Cu-Zn) includes a ground and helicopter-assisted till, humus and rock sampling program. In 1987, during an exploration work, Finnith Exploration found that more than 60% of their till samples contained gold grains (from 1 to 19 gold grains; GM 46862). In 1988, Inco's till sampling program yielded several gold values exceeding 0.5 g/t Au in the heavy mineral fractions, including a maximum value of 4.94 g/t Au (GM 48222). All these historical results are down-ice from the Rivière Waswanipi shear zone that hosts the Rivière Waswanipi showing (2.36 g/t Au over 1 m; 1991, GM 51193).
Between 2004 and 2006, mapping programs revealed that the RWSZ is associated with alkaline lavas, polygenic conglomerates (Timiskaming type) and porphyry intrusions (Goutier et al., 2004 and 2006), a geological setting that Tarku interprets as similar to that of the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone, host of the Detour Lake mine. Tarku cautions that the mineralization at the Detour Lake mine may not be indicative of the mineralization that may be identified on the Company's Matagami properties, and is used a conceptual exploration model only.
Tarku's planned work program aims to validate the historical results and cover all 193 claims in order to identify priority areas along the RWSZ as well as other promising structures and contacts over a distance of 19 kilometres on the two Tarku projects.
Apollo and Atlas Projects
Using an innovative approach based on exploration models that differ from the traditional approach for this area, Tarku has gained a large land position for gold potential in the Matagami base metal camp, along the northern margin of the geological Abitibi Subprovince.
The Apollo Project, 100% owned by Tarku, lies north of the Atlas Project. It consists of 104 claims (5,495 ha) centred on the Rivière Waswanipi ductile shear zone. This regional structure is characterized by the presence of alkaline rocks, polygenic conglomerates (Timiskaming type) and porphyry intrusions bearing anomalous gold values on the order of hundreds of parts per billion (GM 52712). This corridor, altered to carbonate-hematite-magnetite, contains the Rivière Waswanipi gold showing (2.36 g/t Au over 1 m; 1991; GM 51193) hosted in a porphyritic dyke and tuffs altered to pyrite-fuchsite. Collectively, these metallotects present a favourable setting for orogenic gold mineralization associated with alkaline rocks and porphyry intrusions.
The Atlas Project, 100% owned by Tarku, lies south of the Apollo Project. It consists of 89 claims (4,870 ha) characterized by the presence of a volcanic sequence with facies and geochemical affinities similar to those of the Bousquet Formation in the southern Abitibi (host to the Au-Zn-Cu-Ag LaRonde mine). This volcanic sequence that is in contact with sedimentary rocks is affected by aluminous sericite-chloritoid alteration. These observations are favourable indicators for the presence of gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralization (Au-Ag-Cu-Zn). Tarku cautions that the mineralization at the LaRonde Mine mine may not be indicative of the mineralization that may be identified on the Company's Matagami properties, and is used a conceptual exploration model only.
Exploration update in the Chibougamau area
Exploration work was completed in September 2017 on the Richardson and Bullion projects in the Chibougamau area. Two stripping programs were carried out to follow up on prospecting work and PhySpy ground geophysical surveys conducted in 2016 and summer 2017. The aim of the stripping work on the Richardson Project was to sample the pyritic contact between a gabbro and the felsic volcano sedimentary units hosting the gold showing discovered by Eureka Exploration in 2017 (1.7 g/t Au in a grab sample). The aim of the stripping work on the Bullion Project was to expose the gold mineralization encountered in a historical drill hole (2 g/t Au over 2 m; drill hole T-1, 1984; MB87-10). Although this work generated significant geological information that will be useful in upcoming work on the Richardson and Bullion projects, the analytical results did not return any economic values.