Dec 2 2013
North American Nickel Inc. (the "Company") is pleased to announce that it has received preliminary results from this year's VTEM Plus helicopter borne geophysical survey completed at its 100% owned Maniitsoq nickel-copper-cobalt-PGM project in Southwest Greenland.
A total of 917.3 line-kilometres were flown in nine survey blocks (A1 to A9 in Figure 1) resulting in a total of 389 electromagnetic (EM) responses being detected. A preliminary review of the survey results by the Company has identified one hundred new conductor zones. These target zones will be field checked in 2014 and targets with higher nickel sulphide potential will be added to the growing drill target list at Maniitsoq.
The purpose of the 2013 VTEM Plus survey was threefold:
- To obtain EM and magnetic coverage over areas which contain norite and other mafic-ultramafic intrusions that might be associated with economic nickel sulphide mineralization. All these new EM targets are outside the Greenland Norite Belt, which has been the focus of the Company's exploration work for the past 3 years;
- To obtain deeper EM penetration over prospective areas that were surveyed in 2011 with SkyTEM (the new VTEM Plus system has four times the dipole moment of the 2011 SkyTEM system); and
- To detail other conductors of interest detected by previous VTEM and SkyTEM surveys.
NAN CEO, Rick Mark, states: "The market has been focused on the Imiak Hill Conduit Complex the past three months and rightly so, as the high grade drill results around Imiak have been outstanding. Today, we want to remind investors that our 100% owned Maniitsoq property, which is larger than the Sudbury basin, has the potential to host the world's next sulphide nickel-copper-cobalt camp. These preliminary airborne results bolster that belief and provide us with a new array of targets to analyze and prepare for in 2014."
From the preliminary data, the most interesting conductors are those associated with the Pingo norite in flight block A1 (Figure 2). The Pingo norite is situated 24 km northeast of the Imiak Hill Conduit Complex, where the Company has recently made significant nickel sulphide intersections (e.g. 24.75m @ 3.19% Ni and 1.14% Cu in hole MQ-13-028 at Imiak Hill).
The Pingo norite is a northeast-striking, dyke-like intrusion approximately 30 to 80 metres wide exposed intermittently over a distance of more than four kilometres. Numerous rusty zones, containing trace to 5% disseminated sulphides, occur throughout the intrusion. The strongest EM response occurs over strike lengths of up to 200 metres immediately along strike of the Pingo norite (conductors P-146 and 233 in Figure 2) and are the highest priority targets in the block. Additionally a moderate 300 metre-long VTEM conductor (P-149 in Figure 2) occurs near the centre of the norite. From historical drill data the Pingo Norite is known to be nickeliferous.
The final databases for the 2013 VTEM surveys are expected in before year-end and detailed analysis and target rankings based on this data will be carried out early in the New Year. The survey was flown by Geotech Ltd. of Aurora, Ontario and nominal flight line spacing ranged from 100 to 200 metres. Condor Consulting of Lakewood, Colorado monitored the survey for quality control and identified EM anomalies in the preliminary datasets.
Qualified Person
All technical information in this release has been reviewed by Dr. Mark Fedikow, P.Geo, who is the Qualified Person for the Company and President, North American Nickel Inc.
About North American Nickel
North American Nickel is a mineral exploration company with 100% owned properties in Maniitsoq, Greenland, Sudbury, Ontario, and the Thompson, Manitoba nickel belt. VMS Ventures Inc. (TSX VENTURE:VMS) owns approximately 23.9% of NAN.
The Maniitsoq property in Greenland is a Camp scale project comprising 5,106 square km covering numerous high-grade nickel-copper sulphide occurrences associated with norite and other mafic-ultramafic intrusions of the Greenland Norite Belt (GNB). The >75km-long belt is situated along, and near, the southwest coast of Greenland, which is pack ice free year round.
The Post Creek/Halcyon property in Sudbury is strategically located adjacent to the past producing Podolsky copper-nickel-platinum group metal deposit of KGHM International Ltd. The property lies along the extension of the Whistle Offset dyke structure. Such geological structures host major Ni-Cu-PGM deposits and producing mines within the Sudbury Camp.
Statements about the Company's future expectations and all other statements in this press release other than historical facts are "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and as that term defined in the Private Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The Company intends that such forward-looking statements be subject to the safe harbours created thereby. Since these statements involve risks and uncertainties and are subject to change at any time, the Company's actual results may differ materially from the expected results.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Mark Fedikow, President, North American Nickel Inc.