(Image via Kenorland Minerals Ltd.)
One of the more prolific regions for gold mining in Quebec that investors are tracking is the Frotet Evans Greenstone Belt and a mineral exploration Company with a dominant land position in the region recently unearthed an exciting gold discovery….
Vancouver-based
Kenorland Minerals Ltd. (TSX-V: KLD, OTC: NWRCF, Forum) is a mineral exploration company focussed on early to advanced stage exploration in North America. The company currently holds three projects where work is being completed under an earn-in agreement from third parties. The Frotet and Chicobi Projects, which are both located in Quebec, Canada, are optioned to Sumitomo Metal Mining Canada Ltd. and the Chebistuan Project, also located in Quebec, is optioned to Newmont Corporation. Kenorland is also actively exploring in Alaska, USA, where the company owns 100% of the advanced stage Tanacross porphyry Cu-Au project in eastern Alaska as well as an option to earn up to 70% from Newmont Corporation on the Healy Project, located in the Goodpaster District.
It is in the Frotet Evans Greenstone Belt where KLD is focusing their current drill program where they are following up on their maiden drill results from
2020.
At the Regnault target within the Frotet Project the team discovered significant gold mineralization in multiple drillholes over a strike length of approximately two kilometers, specifically one hole which intersected 29.08 metres at 8.47 grams per tonne of gold (g/t Au) including 11.13 metres at 18.43 g/t Au.
To dig a little deeper into this discovery, Stockhouse Editorial caught up with Kenorland Minerals’ President and Chief Executive Officer, Zach Flood to find out more ….
Thank you for joining us today. Let’s bring our readers up to speed on your Company. For those that don’t know, can you give us a rundown on what Kenorland Minerals is all about?
Kenorland Minerals is all about finding new mineral deposits through large-scale, systematic exploration in highly prospective terranes. We take a very calculated approach to early-stage exploration and the majority of our projects fill certain criteria, for example: large land positions, generally under-explored, great geology, and covered terranes with limited bedrock exposure. Our technical team has a deep understanding of mineral systems and targeting from the continental scale down to the prospect scale. We also have a very well respected and experienced board of directors along with many notable long term and supportive shareholders. Kenorland was originally founded in 2016 by myself and three other colleagues who are still with the company. We are all very passionate explorationists with significant ‘skin in the game’ so to speak.
2020 was a notable year for your Company, what are some highlights that stand out?
The obvious highlight was the incredible discovery we made on the Frotet Project in northern Quebec, at a target we have named ‘Regnault’. The initial reconnaissance drilling, into an area with no previous mineral occurrences or drill holes, returned 29.08m @ 8.47g/t Au including 11.13m @ 18.43g/t Au. This was, by any measure, a huge exploration success and a legitimate new gold discovery. Bonified greenfields discoveries like this are extremely rare and can create a massive amount of value, so we’re very excited about it.
For those unfamiliar with the Frotet Evans Greenstone Belt, can you briefly summarize its characteristics?
The Frotet Evans Belt is an elongate east-west trending greenstone belt just to the north of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt in Quebec. The most significant mineral deposit in the belt is Troilus, which has around a 7 million ounce total gold endowment and has produced around 4 million ounces of gold historically. There are no other major gold deposits in the belt, but we hope that will change as we continue to advance Regnault, with our partners at Sumitomo Metal Mining. The belt also has excellent infrastructure, with road access and high voltage power only a few kilometers from our discovery.
What is it about this region that excites your team the most?
There were a few qualities that initially attracted us to the region – most importantly, the belt hosts a very large gold deposit (Troilus), so there is potential for other large deposits to exist. Additionally, in 2017, most of the belt was wide open so we were able to stake close to 56,000 hectares of ground covering favorable geology. As well, the vast majority of the landscape is blanketed with glacial till cover, so conventional prospecting might not have been very effective due to the lack of outcrop exposure. We compiled much of the historical work done in the region and recognized that most of the belt hadn’t seen any systematic geochemical exploration and there was a limited amount of historical drilling, so therefore the belt was under-explored. These are all key criteria we look for in a greenfields project and this proved to be the right approach given the new discovery we made at Regnault.
(Results of 2018 - 2020 regional soil sampling programs at the Regnault target of its Frotet Project. Image via Kenorland Minerals Ltd. Click to enlarge.)
Can you outline the specific goals you have in mind for this program?
The current drill program is focused on two areas, the first being the ‘Regnault Discovery Area’ which is where we drilled the initial 7,800m over 21 holes on the maiden drill program in 2020. On that initial program we intersected significant gold mineralization on various structures extending over a strike length of approximately two kilometers. We have allocated around 6,000m to follow up on the known mineralization here including some step out holes, but also testing completely new targets in the immediate area. The second objective of this drill program is to test more regional targets in an area we are calling ‘Regnault South’. This area is defined by continuous gold in till anomalism which extends another three kilometers along trend to the south where there has been no previous drilling. The total Regnault trend appears to extend for approximately five kilometers and includes the ‘Regnault Discovery Area’ as well as “Regnault South’, so targets in both of these areas will be tested with drilling on this campaign.
How long do you think the drill program will last?
We should be drilling through the end of April, so two months in total. That said, it is possible that we continue drilling at Regnault throughout the upcoming summer months if results from this initial 9,000m drill program warrant further exploration. We should be seeing assays back towards the end of April and into June given the current turn-around times at the labs.
What are some other planned projects that your Company has for its other assets?
Following the current drill program at Regnault, in Quebec, we will be ramping up our Alaskan projects, Healy and Tanacross. We are carrying out a 4,000m diamond drill program at Healy which will kick off in June and last approximately two months. Healy is located in the Goodpaster District, which hosts the 10 million ounce Pogo gold mine, and covers extensive gold in soil anomalies in an area with no previously known mineral occurrences, so again, we are talking about the potential discovery of a newly recognized gold system. In 2019 we completed a total of 800m of shallow reconnaissance reverse circulation (RC) drilling and hit broad, near-surface intervals of low grade gold. We’ve since then added a large amount of detailed geochemistry and geophysics to refine drill targets. This program represents the first diamond drilling to test the gold system at Healy.
Around the same time drilling kicks off at Healy, we will be completing surface and geophysical work at Tanacross, our other project in eastern Alaska which covers a large scale porphyry copper-gold system. After the surface and geophysical work is completed we will be drill testing targets in late August. This year we are focusing on the South Taurus target area, a very large conductivity, magnetic, and geochemical anomaly identified from our property-wide exploration completed in 2018 and 2019. The detailed surface work and geophysics, including a deep IP survey will be used to refine drill targets before testing.
On top of this we will advancing a few other greenfields projects we have in Quebec, including Chebistuan which covers 160,000 hectares in the northern Abitibi, and currently being funded by Newmont Corporation. As well, we are continuing systematic geochemical exploration at Chicobi, located in the central Abitibi, and currently being funded by Sumitomo Metal Mining.
Thank you again for telling us about your Company today, anything further to add?
Real discoveries are where the most value is created – watch this space!
For more on this Company, visit
kenorlandminerals.com.
FULL DISCLOSURE: This is a paid article produced by Stockhouse Publishing.