Canadian North has reported the completion of drilling at its 100% owned Ferguson Lake base metal (nickel, copper, cobalt) and platinum group metal (“PGM”, mostly palladium and platinum) project in Nunavut, Canada.
Map showing all the drill holes completed in 2023 at the Ferguson Lake project. Image Credit: Canadian North Resources Inc.
A 20,000-diamond drilling campaign was scheduled for 2023, with the goal of defining the East and West Zones and testing expansions of the main and satellite mineralized horizons.
The program totaled 21,126.50 m in 78 holes, defining and/or upgrading prospective volumes of mineral resources along strike to the west extension from the West Zone, the east extension from the East Zone, and the extensions of both the East and West Zones across Ferguson Lake, as well as testing satellite mineralized horizons known as the M-Zone, Anomaly-51 Zone, and its east extension.
During 2023, the company successfully completed fresh borehole TDEM surveys on selected deep drill holes, as well as reprocessing and modeling of past geophysical electromagnetic UTEM, VTEM, and borehole TDEM survey data that benefited in drill targeting during the summer program. Furthermore, surface sampling was carried out on a chosen outcrop on the project site.
The drill program intersected semi-massive to massive sulfides of the main or satellite mineralized horizons in 69 out of the 78 holes, and in particular drilling intersected a widening of the prospective host gabbro to hundreds of meters thickness carrying disseminated, semi-massive and massive sulfides in the west extension of the West Zone. The exploration program visually confirmed significant extensions of the sulfide zones along the 15-km long main mineralized horizon as well as the prospectivity of satellite horizons.
Dr. Trevor Boyd, Vice President, Exploration, Canadian North Resources Inc.
The company disclosed the assay findings for the first 21 holes drilled throughout Ferguson Lake in the spring of 2023 in its July 18th, 2023 news release. These holes struck near-surface massive sulfides, for example, 10.0m (from 47.57 to 57.57 m in Hole FL23-504A) at 0.89% Cu, 0.53% Ni, 0.08% Co, 1.05g/t Pd, 0.12g/t Pt, and 0.02 g/t Rh, and extended or defined mineralized zones over 2,700 meters along strike.
During the summer program, 3,253 core samples were taken from the 57 finished holes and submitted for analysis, with results awaited. The majority of the holes were drilled between 100 and 275 m deep to explore for near-surface mineralization prospects. Selected holes were drilled to depths of up to 1,000 m to test thickened mineralized gabbro portions up to 500 m wide inside the West Zone’s west and down-dip expansions.
These mineralized zones remain open both along the strike and at the dip. These, along with additional mineralized zones, including West Zone, South and South Discovery Zone, in addition to regional objectives, will be examined further next year.
According to the “Independent Technical Report, Updated Mineral Resource Estimate, Ferguson Lake Project, Nunavut, Canada, Prepared by Ronacher McKenzie Geoscience Inc. and Francis Minerals Ltd.,” which the company submitted to Sedar.com on July 13th, 2022, once all the program results are received and compiled, they will be added to the project dataset to enhance the block deposit model and update the estimate of the mineral resources at Ferguson Lake.