Beauchastel Cadillac Fault
Location, Access, Description
The Beauchastel-Cadillac Fault property is located in the Abitibi-Temiscamingue region of Quebec Province. It is composed of 23 contiguous mining cells totalling 1,048.72 ha in Beauchastel township (NTS 32D03), about 10 km SW of the town of Rouyn-Noranda (Figure 1). The claims are held by Opawica Exploration Inc and Globex retained a 3% Gross Metal Royalty (GMR) on the property.
The Beauchastel-Cadillac Fault property is easily accessible by road from Rouyn-Noranda. Highway 117 gives an access less than 1 km west of the property while Road 391 strikes east of the property. A trail crosses the property from east to west, alongside Adeline River. Topography is rugged and characterized by a succession of E-W steep cliffs with elevations comprised between 300m and 490m above sea level. The property is almost entirely covered with Boreal forest ; the north part is covered with aspens and birches while the south part is equally covered with both leaf trees (birch) and coniferous (spruce, fir and jack pine).
Numerous commodities can be found in Rouyn-Noranda regarding contractors, skilled labor, equipment rental, as well as sleep and food accommodation of remote workers, even a smelter. A Hydro power line crosses the east part of the property in a NE orientation.
The property is located both on Pikogan’s lands and within the Collines de Kekeko protected area, where exploration is allowed under specific conditions.
Geology and Mineralization
Regional Settings
The property is located in the Abitibi Sub-province of the Canadian Shield. The Abitibi Sub-province is formed of Archean volcanic and sedimentary rock assemblages deposited between 2,730 and 2,690 Ma (Chown et al., 1992; Daigneault et al., 2002) injected by large masses of intermediate to felsic plutonic rocks. All these lithologies were deformed and verticalized during the Kenorean orogeny that occurred about 2.7 Ga ago (Percival et al., 2006; Percival, 2007). Regional metamorphism is at the greenschists grade and locally reaches the lower amphibolite grade around large Archean intrusions.
The Cadillac-Larder Lake (CLL) fault is the major regional feature of the area, extending on more than 250 km in a E-W strike. In the area of the property, it separates rocks of the Abitibi Sub-province in the north, mainly composed of felsic to ultramafic (UM) volcanic rocks, from those of the Pontiac Sub-province in the south, mainly composed of turbiditic sediments. Numerous showings and deposits were uncovered along this prolific structure in Quebec and Ontario Provinces. The CLL crosses the central part of the Beauchastel-Cadillac Fault property from west to east (Figure 2) and roughly corresponds to the path of Adeline River.
Sediments of Timiskaming Group and Gowganda Formation are mostly composed of polygenic conglomerates deposited later during Proterozoic in pull-apart basins along the CLL fault.
Proterozoic diabase swarms then cut through every Archean rocks including those of Timiskaming and Gowganda.
Property Geology
In the Beauchastel-Cadillac Fault property area, rocks of the Abitibi Sub-province belong to the Blake River Group (2703 – 2698 Ma; Nunes and Jensen, 1980; Mortensen, 1993) north of the CLL fault, while south of the CLL rocks belong to both the Pontiac Sub-province and the Gowganda Formation. The property covers approximately 6 km of the Larder Lake – Cadillac Break.
The Blake River Group (BRG) is defined as a subaqueous megacaldeira (Pearson and Daigneault, 2009) whose main characteristics are: radial and concentric arrangement of mafic and intermediate synvolcanic dykes, Dome geometry of the volcanic strata and internal and external ring-shaped synvolcanic faults between which are distributed complexes of volcanoclastic rocks as well as a regional alteration in carbonates (MB2009-19). The superstructure is formed of at least three distinct and embedded caldeiras (Misema, New Senator and Noranda).
The Noranda Caldera corresponds to the final collapse of the volcanic system. This event produced a N070° oriented graben structure that is delimited by the Horne Creek and Hunter Creek faults. In the BRG, most of the volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) deposits are located in the Central Camp and are strongly linked to the evolution of this caldera (MB2009-19). This sequence is crossed by pre- to post-tectonic intrusions.
On the Beauchastel – Cadillac Fault property, the BRG is represented by basalts and andesites of the Rouyn-Pelletier Formation intruded by diorite and gabbro sills. The Gowganda Formation is mainly composed of wacke, arkose, polygenic conglomerates and mudrocks that lie in unconformity on both rocks of the BRG and those of the Pontiac Group, each side of the CLL fault.
In 2001, Globex drilled a 1,000 m drill hole in order to test the thickness of the Proterozoic Cobalt overlayer. The drill hole intersected a much thinner interval of approximately 50 m of Proterozoic cover than previously thought, with the bulk outcropping as a free standing ridge known as the Kekeko Hills. The hole then traversed a sequence of typical Larder-Cadillac Break rock and structural sequences.
Numerous outcrops can be observed throughout the entire property. Regional foliation is E-W to ENE both in Abitibi and Pontiac sub-provinces. Several gold and copper showings are listed north of the CLL fault on the property.
Metallogeny
The Rouyn-Noranda area is rich in metallic deposits. Since the discovery of the Horne deposit in 1927, mineral resources have been mined from more than 42 mines, including several world-class ones. Deposits of the Rouyn-Noranda area formed by at least four different hydrothermal processes (MB96-06): 1) Cu-Zn-Au-Ag mineralizations; 2) Cu-Mo-Au magmatic systems associated with both synvolcanic sodium and tardy-tectonic alkaline intrusions; 3) mesothermal Au-Ag mineralizations and 4) Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization associated with mafic magmatism. These mineralizations developed in response to tectonic processes that affected the region during the Archaean between 2.7 and 2.6 Ga.
The Cadillac – Larder Lake fault represents one of the most important gold metallotects in the Abitibi Sub-province and hosts numerous deposits > 100t Au (Kirkland Lake, Kerr-Addison, Sigma-Lamaque, Malartic…). The Astoria Mine (Historical production of 169,963t @ 5.40 g/t Au and 0.50 g/t Ag – DV96-01) located 6.5 km east of the property is associated with the CLL tectonic zone. Semi-massive sulphide remobilizations are also observed in the Timiskaming sediments at Astoria.
Most of the VMS deposits of the Rouyn-Noranda mining district are located in the Central Camp and are strongly linked to the evolution of the Noranda caldera (Figure 3). Faure (MB2009-19) observed a strong relationship between VMS deposits and some orientations of faults and mafic dykes in the BRG. Most of N050°-N090° and N090°-N135° faults are interpreted as synvolcanic structures. The N050°-090° fault system at Central Camp is unique to the BRG and is aligned elsewhere in Abitibi with other synvolcanic faults.
The Beauchastel-Cadillac Fault property hosts four (4) gold showings and one (1) base metals showing. Gold mineralization at Riviere Adeline, Lac Wasa and Orlando showings is found in quartz-carbonate veins with up to 15% disseminated pyrite, hosted in sheared and altered volcanics. At Wakeko, gold is associated with pyrite clusters in carbonated and silicified andesites. At Lac Wasa Est showing, copper (±Ag ±Au) mineralization is found within a narrow semi-massive sulphide lense hosted in sheared and chlorite-carbonate altered volcanics.
HISTORY
Numerous exploration work were carried out on the Beauchastel – Cadillac Fault property by previous owners, including prospection, geological mapping, stripping, channel-sampling, geophysics and diamond drilling (DDH). The reader is referred to GM69128 for a detailed list.
Between 2001 and 2014, Globex mining entreprises Inc. undertook three DDH programs on the Beauchastel – Cadillac Fault property, for a total of 4,843.19 m (7 DDH). These works are reported in GM59150, GM64554 and GM69128. The 2001 unique 1,033.05 m DDH has shown that the Proterozoic sedimentary cover is “only” 50 to 250 m thick. The majority of the drill hole passed through Archean basement rocks and encountered numerous shear zones associated with the Cadillac Break as well as favourable alteration and lithologies and at least five (5) significant anomalous gold zones up to 15 m in true width. Much of these rock units were anomalous in gold.
In 2008, four additional very wide spaced holes totalling 3,210 m tested carbonate alteration zones and confirmed the potential as demonstrated by the 2001 drill holes. DDH BR-08-02 returned up to 1.29 g/t Au over 5.2 m in strongly carbonated volcanics and sediments.
In 2014, a two-hole, 600m drill program was completed. Drilling targeted geophysical anomalies along known gold bearing structures. Minor shear zones in both holes were intersected near the contact between the volcanic and the sediment units that presented weak alteration and mineralization in pyrite ± chalcopyrite ± arsenopyrite. Only anomalous gold between 100 to 250 ppb was reported in the drill holes. Pulse-EM surveying has been carried-out in the two DDH of 2014 but didn’t succeed in explaining the targeted EM anomalies.
Resources and Potential
The geological context of the Beauchastel – Cadillac Fault property is strongly favorable to the discovery of both new gold and base metals deposits. Previous work has identified numerous gold and base metal showings in the area of the property, as well as geological and structured features which are very favourable for the emplacement of both gold and base metal mineral deposits. DDH by Globex in 2001 has shown that the Proterozoic sedimentary rock cover is much thinner than previously thought, opening considerable exploration space on the property.
The Cadillac – Larder Lake fault crosses the property from east to west and is still strongly underexplored in this area. Very few DDH have been carried-out to test the CLL fault in this area compared to the rest of this prolific structure that carries numerous gold deposits throughout Quebec and Ontario. The rocks, alterations, structures and anomalous gold values indicate that the property has the potential of localizing a large tonnage Cadillac Break type gold deposit. Further exploration, in particular via diamond drilling is warranted.
Research work on VMS fertile synvolcanic faults in the Blake River Group (BRG) by the CONSOREM in 2009 (MB2009-19) highlighted that most fertile faults are associated to the N070° synvolcanic hydrothermal system. According to Sigeom public geology, two (2) faults about N070° affect the volcanics of the BRG in the NE part of the property and their SW extensions are covered by sediments (Figure 2). These structures should therefore be further investigated by deep-geophysic methods (Mag, EM and IP) to evaluate their respective potential for base metals mineralization. Pulse-EM surveys could be undertaken inside a selection of historical DDH located along these N070° structures too.