Island of Newfoundland: An emerging Gold District on the East Coast of Canada

Specimen of gold in quartz undisclosed location in Nl

Exploration and development for gold is gaining momentum on the Island of Newfoundland. Much of the recent and current production of the precious metal is linked to the beginning of modern gold exploration, led by Noranda and a host of juniors. These efforts which peaked in the 1980s, quickly resulted in significant gold discoveries, many of which are associated with major crustal structures across central Newfoundland’s greenstone terranes. Richmont Mines’ Nugget Pond and Hammerdown Mines and BP-Selco‘s Hope Brook Mine were the direct result of these early finds.

Since that time, exploration has been sporadic, carried out by local junior miners and prospectors, supported by government surveys. Nevertheless, key gold discoveries have been made in a wide range of environments prospective for world-class deposit types. These occurrences include well-documented examples of high- and low-sulphidation epithermal deposits, bulk tonnage intrusion and sediment-hosted deposits, and gold-rich volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits.

These highly prospective yet underexplored environments represent opportunities for significant new discoveries, in what is becoming an emerging gold district. The following projects reflect some recent success stories in this region.

• New resource estimates were reported on several advanced gold projects in central and southern Newfoundland; Preliminary Economic Assessments are in progress.
• Rambler Metals & Mining plc is producing from newly defined high-grade copper and gold lenses from a historic Au-rich VMS deposit in the Baie Verte mining district of northeastern Newfoundland.
• Anaconda Mining Inc. is operating the open-pit Pine Cove mine, a mesothermal (orogenic) gold deposit associated with a major structural feature, the Baie Verte Line. The company processed 287,747 dry tonnes of ore, and sold 14,879 ounces of gold in the fiscal year ending May 31, 2013.
• Marathon Gold recently reported total measured and indicated resources at the Leprechaun Deposit of 10.5 million tonnes grading 2.28 g/t gold for 775,000 ounces of gold and 1.5 million tonnes at 2.79 g/t for 140,000 ounces of gold.
• Benton Resources Inc. has assembled a large land package covering the highly prospective Cape Ray Fault Zone. Benton now owns six separate deposits having either 43-101 compliant or historic resources totalling more than 448,000 ounces of gold, with silver and base metals.
• Maritime Resources Corp. is exploring the Hammerdown and Orion orogenic gold deposits, and several other gold zones. An initial Independent NI 43-101 compliant Mineral Resource Estimate released in June 2013 estimates the property to contain more than 400,000 ounces of gold in the measured and indicated category and over 600,000 ounces in the inferred category, both are at a 3 g/t cut-off grade.
• Coastal Gold Corp. is exploring the historic Hope Brook gold mine on the south coast of Newfoundland. An updated NI 43-101 Mineral Resource Estimate released December 2013 reports 19.9 million tonnes indicated at 1.93 g/t Au for 1,239,000 ounces of gold and 1.3 million tonnes inferred at 3.22 g/t for 138,000 ounces of gold.

Despite the current weakness in financial markets, greenfields gold exploration continues on the Island of Newfoundland, with significant results. Notable amongst these has been the recognition of new areas of widespread epithermal gold mineralization in eastern Newfoundland by Silver Spruce Resources and Puddle Pond Resources. Bonanza-grade, gold-bearing quartz veins were found by a local prospector in a little-explored silicic volcanic terrane on the Baie Verte Peninsula. These claims have since been optioned by Bowmore Exploration.

Newfoundland and Labrador is a highly attractive exploration destination and a globally competitive mining jurisdiction, with world-class deposits of iron, nickel-copper-cobalt and zinc-lead-copper.

The province ranks ninth worldwide in the most attractive jurisdictions for investment in mining, according to an annual global survey of mining executives recently released by the Fraser Institute... Read more at this link

Gold Prospects in Newfoundland

Over the last year there have been many news releases of new gold discoveries and advanced exploration results from companies and prospectors working in Newfoundland and Labrador Canada. These announcements fully support the view and beliefs that many people have held and thought for years - "There is great potential for the discovery of new gold deposits in the province".

Exploration and prospecting continues in many areas of the province, this work that is being undertaken by Junior exploration companies and also individual prospectors. The effort is paying off for many prospectors and companies alike!

Over that last few years more than one company has conducted exploration work that resulted in several muti-million once in situ gold deposits being discovered. These deposits at the time of writing, continue to be expanded with solid results occurring on a regular basis.

Even considering the down turn of the stock market and the reduction of gold prices below historic highs, it is still an exciting time and worthy endeavour to explore for gold in Newfoundland.

What is of equal importance to prospectors is that most of these discoveries have come about as a result of applying new thinking and geological modeling when planning and conducting exploration work especially when reviewing historically known gold occurrences.

I recently did some work on one of my claims that had past sampling, geo mapping, geophysical surveys and prospecting results up to 19.5 grams per tonne gold. Using a fresh line of thinking we obtained grab sample results up to 45 grams per tonne outside the historic area of stripping and a non-selective channel chip sample of 5.95 grams per tonne over 6.5 meters that included nondescript rock, alteration areas and one spot of visible gold.

An example of a NL gold press release ... http://www.marathon-gold.com/news/News-Releases/News-Release-Details/2013/Step-Out-Channel-Sampling-at-the-Victory-Gold-Deposit-Returns-Interval-of-211-gt-Au-over-1818-meters/default.aspx

Quality Mineral Properties available in Newfoundland and Labrador! 

There is opportunity out there Happy prospecting and safe travels. 

Turning rocks into money

Have you wondered what is involved in finding a new mineral discovery and turning it into a mine? Professional prospectors, geologists, mining engineers, financiers, investors and other professionals think about that process on a daily basis.  The process often starts with a prospector and involves many other people and companies over the course of time.   

The Prospector

We are a stubborn group - us prospectors, we keep walking the hills, the ridges and the valleys seeking out signs of minerals and looking for the next new discovery. Today was a good day and tomorrow will be a better day, is the thought that guides us in our quest and helps to keep us intrigued and searching both the known and unknown areas of terra firma for something new and hopefully valuable. 

Stubborn willpower is the fuel keeps the prospector working and motivated when the challenges continue to pile up and results for efforts are often slim at best. Professional prospecting is demanding and difficult work. It calls for many days or months of hard effort with minimum results, however once we make a discovery the pain of the past is removed and replaced with renewed optimism. A sense of accomplishment and achievement takes over filling us with energy and determination to grow our new found discovery into a mine.

The Exploration Work

Once that new discovery has been made, the next step is to get down to further exploration work designed to gain a better understanding of the nature, size and value of the mineral discovery. This is the first stage of advanced work generally requiring financial and technical support from outside people and companies, unless you happen to be a very wealthy prospector. To truly gain wealth from a mineral discovery requires that it be mined at a profit.

In order to turn the rocks of a discovery into money and wealth also requires that a great deal of time, study and expenditures are necessary before the decision can be made to start mining. This delineation process could take years and depends upon many circumstances including economic conditions such as price, supply and demand for the mineral, the amount of minerals present and the cost of liberating the mineral from the rock.

To help us better understand the process of turning Rocks into Money, I link to a 3 part video series from Brent Cook, taped on site at a gold property in the Yukon Canada. In these videos he quite accurately describes important work activities and the evaluation process required to begin to understand a mineral deposit.  

Brent Cook is an independent exploration analyst with over 25 years of experience in both property economics and geology evaluations. As a seasoned geologist, Brent's knowledge spans all areas of the mining business from the conceptual stage through to detailed technical and financial modeling related to mine development and production. More on Brent Cook https://www.explorationinsights.com/pebble.asp?relid=92

The videos are found on YouTube  

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3 

There above provides a good introduction to the “turning rocks into money” process. From this we can certainly understand that the process is complicated and that one good assay result is not enough to create a mine. It takes much more than a single outcrop  to create a mine and it often takes much more than press releases to turn a discovery into a profitable mine.

Happy Prospecting.