(McVicar Project - McVicar East and the newly acquired McVicar Lake claims - NW Ontario, Canada. Image via Cross River Ventures Corp. Click to enlarge.)
An underexplored greenstone belt in one of the best places in the world for significant gold discovery ….
Through its work to develop top-tier exploration properties in premier mining districts, Canadian gold exploration Company
Cross River Ventures Corp. (CSE: CRVC, OTC: CSRF, Forum) has added to its already impressive land package in Ontario, which boasts several high-grade occurrences.
CRVC controls a multiple project portfolio in northwestern Ontario, Canada, with highly prospective ground in and among prolific, gold bearing greenstone belts. The Company recently acquired the
McVicar Lake Gold Project from
Argo Gold Inc. (CSE: ARQ). This 2,304-ha gold property is located in the Patricia Mining Division, approximately 150 kilometres east of Red Lake, and 80 kilometres west of Pickle Lake.
With this added asset, Cross River’s McVicar project now sits at 3,925 hectares in size, solidifying its dominant, district-scale, land position within the Archean Lang Lake Greenstone Belt.
The Lang Lake belt is host to at least 10 early stage structurally controlled gold prospects hosted in a variety of rock types and settings, which we will look deeper into later in this article.
Since the release of this news, the Company’s stock shot up to a personal high of $0.50 since its inception.
(Cross River Ventures Corp. stock chart, July 2020 – November 2020. Click to enlarge.)
Cross River’s Chief Executive Officer, Alex Klenman explained that this acquisition essentially gives the Company an entire underexplored greenstone belt in one of the best places in the world for significant gold discovery.
“The geological setting is reminiscent of some other prolific gold districts in northwestern Ontario. The little bit of historical work by BHP is compelling, and we think by applying newer exploration techniques and strategies the exploration upside is clear.”
Let’s explore the Company’s main project a little deeper ….
BHP Minerals Canada had conducted work in the early 1990s and historical results from McVicar Lake returned a series of 34 channel samples that were cut normal to the vein at approximately two meter intervals along the length of the vein exposed in the trenches. The average value of the 34 samples was 28.8 grams-per-tonne gold (g/t Au). Three samples (#1078, #1090, #1096) returned assays of 578.1 g/t Au, 533.5 g/t Au, and 412.5 g/t Au, respectively. These samples were selective by nature and may not represent the true grade or style of mineralization across the property.
Within the McVicar Lake claims lie the Chellow Vein outcrop - a narrow quartz vein that contains smoky grey to white quartz mineralized with minor pyrite and visible gold. This vein is reported to be hosted within a massive unit of gabbro or mafic metavolcanic rock and is exposed for a strike length of approximately 125 meters and is less than 20 centimeters wide.
While significant gold assay values were not found during limited drill testing below the known showings back in the early 1990s, the Cross River technical team believe the Chellow Vein is hosted in a much broader (1-2 kilometres wide) high-strain or deformation zone characterized by a series of parallel-trending shears that have not been systematically tested.
Dr. Rob Carpenter, P.Geo., Ph.D., a Qualified Person as defined under National Instrument 43-101, came on board in late October 2020, when CRVC acquired privately held mineral exploration company
Northern Dominion Metals Corporation (NDMC). This was, in and of itself an important transaction for the Company, as NDMC holds rights to acquire interests in eight gold exploration projects situated within the highly gold endowed Archean Superior Province of Ontario and include significant land positions in the Lang Lake and Uchi belts.
Upon the release of this latest news, Dr. Carpenter reinforced the statement that Cross River has now created a dominant district-scale gold play that also covers the main structural elements of the entire Lang Lake Greenstone Belt.
“This unique opportunity will allow the Cross River technical team to gain valuable regional perspective while systematically evaluating targets.”
With more than 30 plus years of corporate and technical mineral exploration experience, he has founded and played key roles in several successful junior mining companies including
Kaminak Gold Corporation. He led the Kaminak team as CEO from inception in 2005 through acquisition, discovery, and maiden resource calculation of the multi-million-ounce Coffee Gold Project, Yukon. Kaminak was acquired by
Goldcorp in 2016 for over $500 million.
The technical team also includes:
- Dr. Alan Wainwright, PhD, an economic geologist with 20+ years of mineral exploration and research experience and was awarded co-recipient for the Coffee gold discovery (5 M/oz Au)
- Daniel MacNeil, MSc., the founder of Vector Geological Solutions, he is an economic geologist specializing in precious and base metals with over 19 years of experience from Continental scale project generation to in-mine resource expansion in a wide variety of global geological settings
They were recently joined by the newest member to the Cross River team,
Lori Paslawski, MSc, who was brought on to the position of Exploration Manager in mid-November, 2020.
An economic geologist who specialized in field-based exploration for base and precious metal deposits, her expertise includes three-dimensional lithological / structural / ore deposit modeling, project evaluation and grassroots through in-mine exploration targeting.
She has worked in VMS, epithermal Au, orogenic Au and structurally controlled Ag-Zn-Pb districts, and was instrumental in the target generation, delineation, and expansion of the Shovelnose gold discovery through
Westhaven Gold Corp (CSE: WHN). Lori completed her MSc at St. Francis Xavier University, where she worked on the Rio Tinto VMS district in Spain, and she is also currently a Project Geologist with private company
Vector Geological Solutions Inc.
(Uchi Archean Subprovince, showing greenstone belts in red tabs, Cross River projects in brown tabs, and significant deposits/mines in black tabs. Click to enlarge) Image via Cross River Ventures Corp.)
Looking ahead, the technical team at Cross River just completed a district-wide structural interpretation of all previous industry and government data sets. They came away with the knowledge that the key fault trends associated with known surface mineralization remain largely untested.
From here, the Company is planning to complete a high-resolution airborne magnetic survey, as well as acquire Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) imagery in the spring of 2021 in order to constrain these new structural models. This remote sensing method uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges to the Earth from varying distances. Once this is complete, the next step will be ground truthing of high priority targets, which is planned for the summer of 2021.
In
a recent interview with Stockhouse Editorial, CEO Klenman noted that with $1.75 million raised through its latest private placement, the Company had plans to expand its portfolio and will be dedicated to pursuing exploration on the existing properties, where he said:
“Yes, we are absolutely expanding our project portfolio. We’re eager to make a significant impact early in our lifecycle as a public company. We IPO’d in July, so structurally speaking, and sector wise, this is the time to think big. We are confident we’ll be able to add projects of merit, in world class districts, with clear upside potential. We are moving fast and want to set the table for a strong performance in 2021 and beyond.”
That appears to have played out with news of the Northern Dominion and McVicar Lake acquisitions.
Headed by a proven management and technical team with a track record of significant discovery, Cross River Ventures offers significant upside for investors as it now controls over 20,000 hectares of gold exploration projects across Northwestern Ontario. Situated within the highly gold endowed Archean Superior Province, they include significant land positions in two key greenstone belts: The Lang Lake and Uchi belts.
Cross River Ventures is early in its journey, but it is a junior gold operation that is strongly advancing its mission to become a premier exploration Company and builds a strong and diverse portfolio of top tier pedigreed exploration projects with large upside potential. Investors should keep track on this opportunity and get involved as the Company now sets about developing its portfolio, with a world-class technical team directing the efforts.
To find out more about Cross River Ventures and its operations, visit the Company’s website at
crossriverventures.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.