Feb 20 2019
QMC Quantum Minerals Corp takes immense pleasure in announcing that it has now mobilized a diamond drill and support crew to its 100% owned Irgon Mine Project situated within the prolific Cat Lake-Winnipeg River rare-element pegmatite field of S.E. Manitoba, which also holds Cabot Corporation’s nearby Tantalum Mining Corporation of Canada (“TANCO”) rare-element pegmatite.
QMC is starting a two-phase drill program intended to verify and then expand the historic resource available for the Irgon Property (1.2 million tons grading 1.51% Li2O as earlier quantified for Lithium Corporation of Canada). The initial Phase One of the QMC program will include 1500 m of NQ drilling in 12 holes. The first 8 will confirm the widths and grades of the 1953/54 drill results used to estimate the initial, historic resource, which used data gathered in the 1950s obtained by sampling the initial drill core as well as underground channel samples that were taken across the bank from within the presently inaccessible, water-filled workings.
The remaining four proposed holes will follow the Irgon Dike westward from the region that holds the original resource to check the spodumene-bearing pegmatites identified as the Western Extension of the Irgon Dike, thus proving the westward continuity of the Irgon Dike.
Using the results of the Phase One drilling, QMC has directed SGS to create an updated, NI 43-101-compliant, inferred resource for the central, previously developed part of the Irgon Dike. It is expected that the testing of the westward extension of the Irgon Dike will add extra inferred tonnage available on the property.
The NQ core will be protected in core boxes at the drill location and transported after each shift to a safe, heated facility. At this place, it will be recorded, sawn, sampled, bagged, and shipped to SGS Labs in Lakefield, Ontario, for analysis. The rest of the core will be temporarily stored in the Lac du Bonnet warehouse facility, so that it could be later moved to a secure storage facility presently onsite at the Irgon Mine as the weather gets better.
Just like the earlier Irgon channel sampling program, QMC will be requesting analysis for 56 elements using a sodium peroxide fusion and then using inductively coupled plasma atomic emission spectroscopy (ICP-AES/ICP-MS).
Historical Resource
From 1953 to 1954, the Lithium Corporation of Canada Limited drilled 25 holes into the Irgon Dike and then stated a historical resource estimate of 1.2 million tons grading 1.51% Li2O across a strike length of 365 m and to a depth of 213 m (Northern Miner, Vol. 41, no.19, Aug. 4, 1955, p.3). This historical resource is recorded in a 1956 Assessment Report by B. B. Bannatyne for the Lithium Corporation of Canada Ltd. (Manitoba Assessment Report No. 94932).
This historical estimate is assumed to be based on logical assumptions, and both the company and the QP do not have any reason to question the relevancy and reliability of the document. The comprehensive channel sampling and a subsequent drill program will be needed to update this historical resource to present NI 43-101 standards. Historic metallurgical tests showed an 87% recovery from which about 5.9% of concentrate Li2O was acquired.
During this historical 1950s period work program, a complete mining plant was set up onsite, intended to process 500 tons of ore each day, and a three-compartment shaft was drilled to a depth of 74 m. On the 61-m level, lateral development was extended from the shaft for a total of 366 m of drifting, from which seven crosscuts divided the dike. The work was paused in 1957, awaiting a more beneficial market for lithium oxides. During this period, the mine buildings were taken away.
The mineral reserve mentioned above is illustrated as a historical estimate and uses historical terminology which does not meet the current NI43-101 standards. A qualified person has not done adequate work to categorize the historical estimate as current mineral resources or mineral reserves. Although the historical estimates are thought to be based on logical assumptions, they were estimated before the implementation of National Instrument 43-101. These historical estimates do not conform to present standards as specified under sections 1.2 and 1.3 of NI 43-101; as a result, the issuer is not considering the historical estimate as current mineral reserves or mineral resources.