(Image via Northstar Gold Corp.)
The Mecca of gold production in Canada can be found in the Kirkland Lake-Larder Lake gold belt, which includes Kirkland Lake Gold’s Macassa SMC Mine, along with several additional deposits and occurrences. This belt corresponds to an east-trending band of Precambrian clastic and volcanic rocks in the Timiskaming District that unconformably overlie older volcanic assemblages in the southern Abitibi greenstone belt of the Archean Superior province.
Kirkland Lake is a world-renowned region for historic and current gold production with roughly 25 million ounces produced
from seven mines over the past 100+ years, with no slowdown in production in sight and new discoveries emerging all the time.
One of the latest discoveries comes from
Northstar Gold Corp. (CSE: NSG,OTC: NSGCF, Forum), whose flagship property is the 100% owned Miller Gold Property, situated just 18 kilometres southeast of Kirkland Lake and
Kirkland Lake Gold’s (TSX: KL) Macassa SMC gold mine .
Miller Gold Property in Depth:
Northstar Gold focused on exploring for gold in the prolific Kirkland Lake District in northeastern Ontario for more than 11 years as a private Company, before going public on the Canadian Securities Exchange by way of IPO in January 2020.
Northstar’s 100%-owned flagship Miller Gold Property offers excellent infrastructure and logistics for exploration and development. The Property also shares a number of very important geological characteristics of the Kirkland camp, including the unique style of high-grade gold and tellurides mineralization. Having a similar age, chemistry, controls, and style of the gold mineralization as Kirkland strongly suggests the Miller Gold Property is tapping the same gold source as the 7 historic Kirkland mines that have produced >25 million ounces of gold over the past century. The numerous “Kirkland Lake-style” vertical and flat high-grade gold-telluride veins in volcanics and recent Allied Gold Zone discovery in one of 3 known syenite stocks being explored by Northstar on the 11 square kilometre (1,100-hectare) Property is testament to this.
Miller is situated on a major first order fault structure, the Catharine Fault, that branches off the Main Kirkland / Cadillac-Larder Breaks. This interconnected structure is believed to have facilitated Miller tapping the same gold source as the Kirkland camp. The key difference is that while Kirkland has been producing gold for more than a century, Miller has not been thoroughly explored at depth and provides excellent exploration potential for similar gold resources.
Past Northstar Work on the Miller Gold Property
- 2012 – 2015: Northstar Gold Corp completed surface exploration including ground magnetics, 3D induced polarization (IP) surveying and 5,846 metres (27 holes) of diamond drilling Northstar
- Northstar drill results included multiple high-grade and broad, low grade intersections with abundant visible gold and tellurides
- 2016: Northstar mined a 932-tonne bulk sample from the historic No.1 Vein that averaged 5.1 g/t gold
All rock types found on the Property can be mineralized with gold, further reinforcing the belief that the Company is sitting on a very robust gold mineralizing system.
2020 exploration program – 3D model of the No. 1 Vein and the near-surface, bulk-tonnage Allied Gold Zone: a large and open mineralized discovery in the Allied Syenite:
(Allied Syenite Gold Zone 3D Model and Sections Illustrating Vein Components and Footwall Allied Zone. Image via Northstar Gold Corp. Click to enlarge.)
Northstar diamond drilled 5,023 metres in 28 holes last year, targeting near-surface high-grade and bulk-tonnage gold-telluride mineralization at Miller. Four new high-grade vein structures (Vein 1, 2, 3 and 4) (
86.6 g/t Au / 0.5 metres and 18.0 g/t Au / 3.9 m; incl. 100.0 g/t Au / 0.6m) and the bulk-tonnage Allied Gold Zone (19.4 g/t Au Over 4.4M within
1.4 G/T Au over 118.5M & 4.7 g/t Au over 8.0M within
1.2 g/t Au over 107.3M) were expanded / discovered and modeled in 3D. Results clearly illustrate the size and tenor of the No. 1 Vein and near-surface, bulk-tonnage gold potential (see image above).
Today’s explorers have significant advantages compared to the prospectors of long-ago, being able to use modern science-based techniques such as 3D IP, gravity as well as artificial intelligence (AI) or machine intelligence analysis. The Northstar team used each of these tools in its 2020 exploration program and returned some outstanding results.
There is an excellent opportunity at Miller for potential open-pit extraction and to fully optimize this opportunity, the team commissioned a $350,000 property-wide 3D IP, gravity and magnetic geophysics program on the Miller Gold Property in 2020.
GoldSpot Discoveries Corp. processed all geophysical data and developed a number of new exploration targets by 3D modeling and analysis utilizing leading edge, proprietary AI and machine learning technology.
With a deeper understanding of known gold occurrences and gold exploration targets, the Company recently reported IP results that define discrete, linear low-resistivity and broader chargeability anomalies in a property-wide corridor measuring 1,600 metres by 600 metres, possibly representing hydrothermal conduit structures and pervasive, gold-bearing alteration, respectively, spatially related to the Allied and Planet syenite stocks.
GoldSpot’s AI modeling has defined eight large near-surface bodies that may reflect additional gold-mineralized syenite bodies, similar to the three known mineralized syenites at Miller (Allied, Planet and Meilleur Syenites), that will be a focus for the 2021 drill program. GoldSpot’s work clearly increases the prospectivity of the Miller Property.
(Miller Gold Property Chargeability Section (mV/V) Through the Allied Syenite. Image via Northstar Gold Corp. Click to enlarge.)
For full highlights GoldSpot’s AI Machine Learning Analysis of Miller Gold Property 3D IP, gravity and magnetic inversions, please click
here.
(Miller Gold Property IP Chargeability (mV/V), Resistivity (ohm-m) and Drill Targets at 100m Depth. Image via Northstar Gold Corp. Click to enlarge.)
With so many new exploration targets, the challenge Northstar now faces is to rank and drill the best targets first. In an interview with Stockhouse Editorial, Northstar Gold Corp. Chief Executive Officer, Brian P. Fowler stated that the Company is working towards getting the drill spinning by mid-March 2021, targeting zones that can only be drilled during the winter, then moving on to holes that can be drilled year-round after breakup.
Northstar is now fully funded to conduct a 2021 Phase II diamond drill program at the Miller Gold Property to follow up 2020 gold discoveries and test new targets defined by GoldSpot’s AI 3D machine learning technology.
Satellite Projects:
Northstar also has three additional 100%-owned exploration projects located in northern Ontario.
Chief among them is the recently acquired 12 square km (1,200 hectare) Rosegrove Property situated just half a km from the Miller Gold Property, which has more than doubled the Company’s land position in the camp. This is a highly prospective property that the team is looking to conduct a regional mag survey upon in 2021. It lies on the same trend with the Miller Project.
Another is the 51 sq km (5,090 hectare) 100%-owned Bryce Property, an intrusive gold / PME VMS project located 35 km southwest on the Ridout Break where past drilling has returned intercepts of
0.86 g/t Au over 80m in DDH BG12-65, including 2.09 g/t Au over 25.5m, and
1.08 g/t Au over 56m in DDH BG13-68, including 25.13 g/t Au over 2.0m. This project boasts $4 million in past Northstar expenditures and more than 20,000 metres of drilling. There is a very large gold system on Bryce, with significant intrusive hosted gold targets. The Northstar team is validating and verifying historic data, preparing an NI-43-101 report and planning a limited surface exploration program to follow up a recent newly defined mineralized shear structure.
(Bryce Property Geology Map via via Northstar Gold Corp. Click to enlarge.)
Northstar’s fourth property is the recently enlarged, 100%-owned, 600 hectare Milestone Cu-Ni-Co Property, a Teck “historic resource-stage” property situated on Temagami Lake. Northstar is considering options to advance the Bryce and Milestone projects through joint venture partnerships or other means.
As CEO Fowler puts it, the idea is to advance these projects to the NI 43-101 stage to increase investor awareness, maximize geological understanding and optimize monetization opportunities.
Meet the team:
With 40 years of experience, CEO Fowler is a geologist at heart who has worked in this industry all over the world. Prior to his time with Northstar Gold, he previously managed regional exploration and advanced stage, feasibility-level projects, and evaluations at Placer Dome Inc. As someone who loves every aspect of the business, Mr. Fowler brings a wealth of hands-on corporate and global mineral exploration experience from conceptual exploration to feasibility studies and mining.
Speaking on what attracted him to this project, he called it an exploration opportunity that was too good to pass up. Mr. Fowler signed on with Northstar in November, 2018 to spearhead the Company’s efforts to graduate to the CSE by way of a $3 million IPO. This project and Company had “checked all the boxes”, in terms of its tight share structure, capable management team and a highly skilled and accomplished board of directors.
He added that he has been supported by the benefit and the privilege of working with top professionals in all aspects of the business. This management team combines exploration, mining, corporate development and financing to form a complete leadership package. This includes George Pollock, VP of Exploration who has extensive field experience in the Abitibi Greenstone Belt, including land management, acquisition and development, exploration planning, including drilling programs, data management, aboriginal and government consultations, regulatory applications and filings and investor and shareholder relations. He is joined by Chief Financial Officer Robert D.B. Suttie, who has more than 20 years of financial reporting experience, 10 of which were in public accounting prior to his tenure with
Marrelli Support Services.
Financing:
In late December 2020, Northstar Gold closed the first tranche of its $2.7 million (CAD) non-brokered private placement of units for gross proceeds of
$2.4 million.
The Offering was comprised of 4.3 million flow through units, for a total of $1.3 million and 4.1 million non-flow through units, totalling $1,034,375.
The gross proceeds will be used to incur eligible Canadian Exploration Expenses (CEE) at the Miller Gold Property and the Bryce Gold Property. The Company intends to renounce CEE effective on or before December 31st, 2021. The proceeds raised from the Non-Flow Through Component will also be used for exploration work on the Miller Gold Property and general working capital purposes.
Investment summary:
(Miller Gold Project. Image via Northstar Gold Corp.)
Over the next short while we are likely to see more and more investment dollars gravitating towards gold. This means that companies with solid exploration assets such as Northstar Gold will see this solid investing sentiment filter down to its own operations. As the majors in the market make money, they will need to replenish their production, further driving the value of gold higher and higher, making operations such as Miller Gold more and more lucrative.
2021 will likely see a very positive gold market and this opportunity is shaping up to be an exciting one for investors. Those who are just beginning their due diligence into precious metal opportunities should be paying attention to what Northstar Gold Corp. is doing.
The Company has commissioned a Technical Report relating to its Bryce Property to increase market awareness, maximize geological understanding and optimize monetization opportunities by way of option or other means.
For more information on the Company, visit
northstargoldcorp.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.