Property Overview
Qualified Person, QA and QC | | | Neil Pettigrew, M.Sc., P.Geo., a registered professional geologist in Ontario and Vice President, Exploration for PC Gold, is the Company's Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101. Mr. Pettigrew has reviewed and approved the technical content of this website. Mr. Pettigrew is also the person responsbile for developing and implementing the Company's Quality Assurance and Quality Control (QA/QC) protocols and procedures. Please click here to link to the detailed QA/QC section of this website. | | |
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| | Location | | | | 51° 31’ N lat., 90° W long. approx. 400 km northwest of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. | | |
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| | Size | | | | The Property consists of a mix of contiguous patented and non-patented mining claims covering a total of 4,117 hectares (10,173 acres). The core area encompassing the past producing Pickle Crow gold mine has dimensions of approximately 4 km SW-NE by 1.5 km SE-NW, and comprises 98 patented mining claims covering 1,532.9 hectares (3,788 acres). | | |
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| | Ownership | | | | PC Gold holds 100% of the Mining Lease encompassing the Pickle Crow Property, which expires July 31, 2067. Registered ownership of mineral rights and surface rights is held by Teck Resources Limited. PC Gold’s leasehold interest is additionally subject to two NSR Royalties totaling 1.25%, each of which it has the option of purchasing. | | |
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| | Access & Infrastructure | | | | Excellent. Road and air access, power generators, 3 shafts, 2 winzes and some 40 kms (25 mi) of workings, 250 tpd mill, on-site office, tailings sites, mine dry facility, communications, water. Nearby housing, educational, medical, recreational and shopping facilities, labour, industrial supplies and services. | | |
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| | History | | | | The past producing Pickle Crow gold mine was a long life (1935-1966), consistent money-maker. Total production was 1.47 million oz gold (plus some silver) at 16.14 g/t Au (0.47 oz/T Au). In the post WWII period the profits from the Pickle Crow mine partially underwrote the growth of Teck Corp. The mine closed (1966) in a low gold price environment ($35/oz) with mineralization in place and multiple zones open to depth. Dr. Norman B. Keevil was the President of PCGML at closing. | | |
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| | Previous Exploration | | | | Extensive. Between 1935 and 1966, mapping, geophysics, pitting, trenching, drilling etc. Largely dormant 1966-1979. Renewed activity and broad spectrum of work (geophysics, geochemistry, surface and underground drilling, misc. studies, etc.) in 1980s, esp. between 1985-1989. Dormant for most of the 1990s. Some drilling, bulk sampling, misc. environmental and metallurgical studies etc. and mill construction 1999-2005. | | |
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| | Previous Drilling | | | | Estimated 3,635 surface and underground drill holes totaling 217,000 metres (711,900 ft.) between 1934 and 1999. | | |
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| | Regional and Local Geology | | | | Located regionally within the Uchi subprovince of the Canadian Shield, the same belt of rocks that hosts the deep, rich mines of Red Lake. Located locally within the Pickle Lake greenstone belt, a package of deformed, generally low-grade metavolcanics and metasediments with granitoid intrusions. On the Property itself, principal rock types consist of metabasalts (greenstone) with intercalated metasediments, predominantly carbonate-magnetite banded iron formation, as well as quartz-feldspar porphyry and felsic to intermediate volcanic and volcaniclastic units. | | |
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| | Mineralization | | | Two principal styles, and a possible third recently identified: - narrow, high-grade gold-bearing quartz-carbonate veins hosted in metamorphosed mafic lavas (greenstone) and porphyry, which were the main source of gold produced at the Pickle Crow Mine from 1935 to 1966;
- iron formation hosted gold mineralization adjacent to vein structures. Only a limited amount of this second type of material was processed at the Pickle Crow Mine and most of it remains in place; and
- possible pyritic tuff with quartz stockwork or stringers recently identified during the preparation of the 43-101 Technical Report.
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| | Structural Controls | | | | Gold mineralization at Pickle Crow (both quartz vein and iron formation hosted) has been localized along or adjacent to shear zones developed oblique to greenstone belt lithological trends and crossing between adjacent lithologically concordant shear zones or faults. | | |
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| | Deposit Type | | | | Archean low-sulphide Au-quartz veins. Also known as shear-zone-hosted gold, Archean quartz-carbonate vein gold deposits, Archean lode gold and Archean mesothermal gold. This category of gold deposit is found in every major Archean craton and accounts for worldwide historic gold production in excess of 9,900 tonnes of gold, second only to the Witwatersrand modified paleo-placer gold deposits of South Africa. | | |
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| | Mineral Resources | | | The Property does not presently host NI 43-101 compliant Resources. However, several non-43-101 compliant estimates of the volume of gold mineralization hosted by the Property have been conducted in the past. Please see 'History' for more information. | | |
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| | Environment | | | | Studies indicate that in spite of the history of mining on the Property, water quality is generally very good to excellent, and historic activities are having no adverse effect. Local populations of flora and fauna are healthy. Moreover, tailings are benign in terms of Acid Rock Drainage. This is believed due to the presence in the ore historically mined and tailings that remain of carbonate minerals, which act to buffer any acid generated by oxidization of sulphide minerals, coupled with the fact that the sulphide content of the quartz vein ores historically mined was low, at generally less than 2%. | | |
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| | Exploration Potential | | | | Between 1935 and 1966, just under 1.5 million ounces of gold were taken from the historic workings. Moreover, the block of ground to depth beneath the historic workings is considered as prospective as that which was mined above. Gold deposits in the Uchi subprovince show excellent continuity in the depth dimension, and operations such as Goldcorp’s Red Lake Mine at Red Lake, Ontario, and Agnico-Eagle's Laronde Mine in Quebec are being worked at depths much greater than the deepest historic operations at Pickle Crow. The high grade veins from which the historic production was drawn are known from the drilling record to remain open to depth at grades similar to those that were mined. Of these known veins within the Pickle Crow Mine proper, only a minority actually outcrop on surface, whereas more than a dozen are known in deeper areas of the mine, indicating a robust mineralized system which may be intensifying with depth. Moreover, several substantial zones of gold in iron formation, not historically mined, remain in place both within the area of the historic workings, and to depth. There is also some indication, derived from recent review of historical drilling results during preparation of the NI 43-101 Technical Report, that there may be a new style of mineralization at depth in the No. 3 Shaft area of the Property, a pyritic tuff with quartz stockwork or stringers carrying excellent gold values over significant intervals. It is therefore reasonable to consider the unexplored block of virgin ground to depths of 2,000 metres or more below the historic workings to be as prospective from an exploration standpoint as the shallower areas mined in the past. There are, in addition, several areas on the Property which host near surface gold mineralization or remain prospective for same. Consequently, there is believed to be considerable potential to expand the Property’s known gold zones. | | |
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| | Current Work & Next Steps | | | A major exploration and development program commenced on the Property late in 2007, and was accelerated subsequent to the Company’s IPO in May 2008. The Company’s overriding goal is to demonstrate the existence on the Property of a substantial compliant gold resource, and to grow that resource base as much as possible by expanding known gold zones and generating new discoveries. These goals will be pursued by, firstly, quantifying what remains within the historical workings; secondly, by drilling lateral to and below the historical workings; and thirdly, by drilling new targets located away from the core of the old mine. Key near term objectives are to: - Complete the bulk of the historical data digitization and modeling process;
- Complete an initial deep hole and wedges below Shaft 1 to approximately the 1,700 metre vertical level;
- Complete testing of all newly-identified shallow targets that have emerged from the Fall 2009 Quantec geophysical survey.
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| | Property Reports | | | | A National Instrument 43-101 Technical Report on the Pickle Crow Property has been prepared by independent consultants MPH Consulting Limited of Toronto. Please click here to view it. | | |
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