Monday, April 26, 2010

Gold in Manitoba - New gold camp emerging in the Rice Lake area

On Friday April 22 2010, San Gold Corporation made an announcement via a news release with the title

"San Gold Drills High Grade in New RL East Zone including 4.9 meters of 319 g/tonne". 

Part of this news release reads as follows:

Dale Ginn, CEO of San Gold Corporation (SGR: TSX-V) (SGRCF: OTCQX) is pleased to report exceptionally encouraging results from underground exploration drilling following up on the recent discovery of multiple new zones beyond the eastern extremities of the Rice Lake mine (see press releases dated Jan 25 and March 31, 2010).

These zones, collectively known as RL East display remarkable widths as well as grade and are hosted within structures that trend upwards toward the high grade 007 zone near surface. Drill hole #28-10-53 cut 121 g/tonne (3.53 oz/ton) over 13.3 meters (44 ft) and included an extremely high grade segment of 319 g/tonne (9.30 oz/ton) over 4.9 m (15.9 ft) containing coarse visible gold. Drill hole #28-10-80 encountered 5 individual zones within a wider mineralized section of 50 meters (164 ft) grading 4.8 g/tonne (0.14 oz/ton).

Dale Ginn, CEO,  also stated; “San Gold mine geologists have produced one of the most impressive intersections ever within Rice Lake. Taking into account that this is exploration drilling outside of known Rice Lake mine extents, these results are truly remarkable. The mining team’s efforts are demonstrating that this mineralized system is linked to our new surface zones and that our geological model produces results at depth as well as near surface.We look forward to closing this gap and taking a broader approach to a mineralized system that is fast becoming much larger than a collection of individual deposits.”

Full San Gold April 22, 2010 Press Release

San Gold has had additional and remarkable success in finding awesome gold deposits in "other" new reaches of the historic Rice Lake Mine and to the date the company has also discovered new rich gold deposits closer to surface. These near surface deposits include the Hinge Zones and 007 discoveries all of which returned high grade gold intersections from drilling. The Hinge zone discovery has already been developed into the latest mine and the company has also begun underground development towards the new 007 deposit. To get a better understanding of the spectacular gold discoveries made by San Gold in the last few go to their news page on their website http://www.sangoldcorp.com/index.php?id=55

Gold discoveries were first reported in the Rice Lake greenstone belt early in the 1900's and close to 2 million ounces have been extracted to date from mines of various sizes in the area. The new discoveries being made in recent times certainly indicate that much more gold exists in the region than has been mined to date. In fact the record pace at which new discoveries are being made and are being put into production, in my opinion, strongly indicates that we can expect to see many more ounces being "proved up" in the future.

From following the Rice Lake and San Gold developments, one thing is certainly clear to me -  that the beliefs, efforts, dedication and years of hard work by the San Gold Executive Chairman,  Mr Hugh Wynne ( local businessman / prospector)  is paying off in golden colored spades. Mr Wynne played a key roll in assembling the land package, assets  and professional team of what is today San Gold Corp, it can be said with confidence that Mr Wynne has also played an important part in shaping the future of the region and perhaps gold mining as whole in the Province of Manitoba. I feel strongly that Mr Wynne and the entire San Gold team should be nominated for high rewards and recognition at the next PDAC convention.

The Rice Lake Area and the South Eastern Manitoba Region in general has certainly not yet seen the exploration effort or expenditures in its history that its neighbor the Red Lake District of Ontario has seen, however there is strong evidence that it now can boost about grades that equal or exceed the best that the Red Lake Gold Camp has produced.

Just a short time ago on a visit  throughout the Rice Lake greenstone belt I came to realize that at least six different companies are presently drilling or recently completed diamond drilling in the area. There may be more, but there at least six companies actively exploring for gold . San Gold is "chomping away" and continuing the largest drilling program in the history of the area while Strike Point Gold, Wildcat Exploration, Cougar Minerals, Bison Gold and EagleRidge Minerals Ltd have exploration programs ongoing or have recently completed drilling on properties in the area. San Gold and these other active companies are contributing the finances, resources and effort required to finally start unlocking the gold potential of the area.

There is good reason to believe that a new and exciting Gold Camp is now emerging for want of a better name I call it the "Rice Lake Gold Camp".

As a prospector I very much enjoy seeing the new gold camp develop.

Happy Prospecting

This post was made at www.goldsearch.blogspot.com by Robert Freeman

About the author: Robert Freeman is a full time professional prospector with over 20 years direct hands on experience in the field. He manages a  prospecting and exploration company which provides mineral claims, mineral claim staking, prospecting services, field and logistical services, along with consulting property management and acquisition services to the mining industry. He founded or played a key role in the formation of several exploration companies and has created mineral exploration land packages in numerous regions of Canada for both public and private companies.