Mont Sorcier

The Mont Sorcier Project is located at the northeast end of the Abitibi greenstone belt, which total endowment, including Production, Reserves and Resources is estimated to be > 9,375 t Au (Dubé and Mercier-Langevin, 2020)

The Project area straddles the contact between the mafic magmatic rocks of the Lac Doré Complex (LDC)  to the south and sediments and mafic volcanics of the Roy Group to the north. Within the Property, the volcanic stratigraphy of the Roy Group comprises predominantly basalt, andesitic basalt, mafic to felsic volcaniclastic rock, dacite, rhyolite, BIF, chert, and argillite of the Waconichi Formation. The LDC was emplaced into this volcano-sedimentary package, and both are crosscut by mafic to ultramafic sills and younger plutonic intrusions ranging from tonalite to carbonatite. The BIFs of the Waconichi Formation are particularly notable in the Project area. The Project area is largely underlain by anorthosites of the LDC, which grade into the iron-rich ultramafic units. The presence of magnetite (Fe₃O₄) is strongly associated with ultramafic units.

All rock units in the area were affected by multiple deformation events and are folded into a succession of east-west trending anticlines and synclines. Lithological units tend to have steep to subvertical dips. Faults and shear zones in the region strike dominantly northeast and east.

Metallogeny

Magnetite mineralization at the Mont Sorcier Project shows several similarities to other vanadiferous titanomagnetite (“VTM”) deposits or ilmenite deposits associated with layered mafic intrusive complexes, such as the Bushveld Complex (South Africa) or the Skaergard Intrusion (Greenland). VTM deposits are typically found in the upper, more fractionated portions of layered complexes.

Two significant mineralized zones are found on the Property, the North Zone and the South Zone. The North Zone is identifiable in the field and through airborne magnetics over a strike length of approximately 4 km. It appears to be between 100 m and 300 m thick, forming a roughly tabular subvertical body that strikes east-west and extends to depths of at least 500 m based on drilling. The South Zone, identifiable over approximately 3 km, strikes east-northeast to west-southwest. It has been mapped in detail and drilled over its entire strike length. It is thought to form a tight synclinal structure, with a shallow plunge to the west-southwest. It is 100-200 m thick and extends to a depth of at least ~300m.

In both zones, magnetite is disseminated within ultramafic rocks (dunite, peridotite pyroxenite), and the ultramafic VTM-bearing lithologies are surrounded by mafic units (gabbro and anorthosite). The North Zone and South Zone had been interpreted by Dorr (1966) as representing the same stratigraphic unit that has been folded into kilometre-scale parasitic folds by the upright folding that affects the region. Magnetite is locally observed within anorthosites; however, it occurs only as minor disseminations or veinlets.

A particularity observed at Mont Sorcier is the formation of a broad layered zone of magnetite mineralization in which vanadium has a relatively homogeneous spatial distribution, in contrast to the rhythmic succession of centimetre- to metre-thick magnetitite and silicate-rich rocks that characterize the VTM deposits elsewhere within the LDC and within other layered complexes, but which are not observed at Mont Sorcier (Mathieu, 2019). 

Vanadium is predominantly used with iron to produce high strength steels, with about 85% of the supply of vanadium.  Vanadium is also used in batteries and medical uses.