Metals Australia Ltd (ASX: MLS) has identified additional potential at its 100%-owned Eade Gold Project, located in Quebec, Canada through a detailed evaluation of all available historical geological and geophysical data.
Director Gino D’Anna said the encouraging results have unveiled and multiple gold, copper and base metal targets and the company is currently preparing to mobilise a technical team to the field to follow up on.
The Eade Gold Project represents a significant high-grade under-explored gold project, located in the Lac Guyer Greenstone Belt, a prolific greenstone belt located in Northern Quebec, the subject of significant exploration by major Canadian and international exploration companies,” Mr D’Anna said.
“We see a lot of upside in the exploration of this project particularly given its strategic location, the current macro environment for the gold sector and the potentially high-grade nature of the project.
“The completion of the historical technical data review and our LWIR, VNIR, SWIR and SAR surveys identified a number of additional gold exploration targets and the Company is currently preparing to mobilise a technical team to the field to focus on the high priority targets.
“In tandem with this proposed field exploration programme at the Eade Gold Project, the company is also fast tracking the next stage of development at the Lac Rainy Graphite Project.
“This includes the completion of a scoping study, flowsheet optimisation testwork and the initial stages of downstream product specification testwork. The completion of this additional testwork and the completion of the scoping study is considered essential to enable the company to attract offtake agreements and/or major joint venture partners.
“Although the additional testwork and scoping study will take time to complete, the company believes it is essential to be done and intends to progress it as quickly as possible.”
The Eade Gold Project has seen many campaigns of fieldwork by geologists of the Quebec Government Survey beginning in 1998.
Mr D’Anna said that whilst the Eade Gold Project has been historically explored, it is important to note that the historical exploration focused on localized areas resulting in much of the project area either remaining unexplored or significantly under-explored.
The exploration work undertaken by the Quebec Geological Survey, Virginia Gold Mines and Goldcorp identified a number of high-priority gold, copper and base metal exploration targets, however these were never followed up with modern exploration techniques, despite the region being host to several high-grade gold, copper and base metal discoveries and deposits.
To enable the company to undertake and finalise a thorough and robust field exploration program, the Company appointed Magnor Exploration Inc. to review the historical exploration data, including the public-file assessment reports which were lodged with the Quebec Mines Department outlining exploration conducted in the area, the Quebec Geological Survey mapping and prospecting data, geophysical data for both the Quebec Government and non-Government data, drill hole data and lithological information as well as any other exploration data that would be relevant to future planning.