In 2009, Lake Shore Gold drilled 2 holes (
Assessment File 20000003914/20005893), ~400m to the west of RTM's Ireland Complex property boundary.
Drill Hole Location Rocktypes & mineralization LA07-02 5486125 clastic metasedimentary rocks, granite, 5% pyrrhotite
486650 porphyritic monzonite, quartz feldspar porphyry,
trace chalcopyrite, blue quartz
eyes (riebeckite?, syenite?)
LA07-03 5485925 clastic metasedimentary rocks, oxidized near 486650 overburden/bedrock contact, felsic int(syenite?), strong sericite, monzonite, mafic
intrusive (gabbro?), garnets
Note: Riebeckite was found in the Argor Carbonatite, located about 175 km to the north of the Ireland Complex. Riebeckite quite often occurs within sanuitoid syenites and monzodiorites. A good example of a gold deposit in sanukitoid syenites is the Lac Bachelor Mine in Quebec.
"The Argor body is an elongate intrusion of pyroxenite and carbonatite about 2.5 km long, although the ends were not reached in drilling, with a maximum width of 300 m. It is emplaced into garnet-hornblende-plagioclase gneisses and augen gneisses but is overlain by 13-35 m of Lower Devonian sedimentary rocks of the Sextant Formation. The carbonatite is a complex body of several phases, the principal type comprising 60-68% dolomite,
5-10% riebeckite, 5-15% apatite, 5-10% phlogopite and 2-15% titaniferous magnetite, together with pyrochlore and zircon".
(https://alkcarb.myrocks.info/node/851) The heavily oxidized and jointed horizon near the upper portion of Lake Shore Gold's drill hole LA07-03, near the overburden/ bedrock contact is quite interesting. How and why was this horizon formed? What is the source for the oxidation, besides pyrite? The oxidized zone was also intercepted near the top of Drill Hole LA07-05, which is located just outside (northwest) of the main magnetic feature, on the Comet's tail
(Assessment File 20000002703/20004200, page 22). There was no discussion in Lake Shore Gold's drilling report on the analysis for any of the assay data. It's also unfortunate that some pages of the drill log for hole LA07-02 are missing, in particular, pages 7-10.
Another problem is where are Rock Samples 135266, 135358 and 135381 located, as these 3 samples analyzed the following:
Rock Sample Gold Copper
ppb ppm
135266 884 7700
135358 868 7740
135381 6930 121
These are very encouraging numbers!! These 3 sample numbers were listed in the Ireland Twp Assay Sheets at the back of the report, but were not mentioned in the drill logs for the drilling carried out on Lake Shore Gold's Ireland Twp project.
It's interesting that the predominant rock type in these 2 drill holes is monzonite. This suggests that maybe the dominate rock type in the larger, main 'intrusive' body of RTMs could also be monzonite as well.
Huge copper deposits are known to be associated with monzonitic rock types as well. The
Bingham Canyon mine in Utah and the Bagdad mine in Arizona are two good examples of
porphyry copper deposits hosted in altered monzonite. There are also several copper deposits hosted by quartz monzonite in British Columbia as well.