A Vancouver-based mining exploration company will soon be looking for gold in the Providence Greenstone Belt, 250 kilometres northeast of Yellowknife.
Silver Range Resources announced Aug. 2 it signed a letter of intent with GGL Resources, giving it the right to explore for metals and minerals, save for diamonds, in 40 per cent of the belt. Under the agreement, GGL Resources remains the owner of the ongoing project and will be awarded a combination of cash payments, shares, lease payments and a milestone payment, all dependent upon what Silver Range Resources finds in the area.
photo courtesy of Chris Hrkac
A greenstone belt, whose name derives from the green colouration of the rockface, is an area of circa 2.5-billion-year-old rock. Regardless of where in the world these rock areas are found, they are known to contain metals such as gold, copper, zinc, lead and diamonds.
The Providence Greenstone Belt is 140 kilometres long and 10 to 30 kilometres wide. It was first mapped in full in the late 1970s. Richard Drechsler, vice-president of communications for Silver Range Resources, said the area's gold and base metal deposits such as zinc, copper and nickel are still relatively unexplored.
Tom Hoefer, executive director of the NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines, agrees it has a lot of mining potential.
“It's an underexplored belt, or big package of rocks, so it has tremendous potential for gold-based metals, even diamonds because they're not far from Ekati,” he said.
While GGL Resources retains the rights to explore for diamonds, Drechsler said this recent deal is a good one for the company, which already has a foothold in the North. Silver Range Resources has ongoing exploration projects in Nunavut's Ennadai-Rankin Greenstone Belt and several locations around the southern parts of the NWT-Nunavut border.
Company president Mike Power also has a good deal of Northern background, as one of the founders of Yellowknife-based exploration company Aurora Geosciences.
GGL Resources has done $7 million worth of exploration in the area, according to a news release from the company, including construction of a 20-person exploration camp and diamond drilling on one nickel deposit.
“It's a significant chunk of ground that has had a lot of work done to it already,” said Drechsler. “We've got airborne surveys have been flown over the entire project, which is really one of the baseline tools for exploration in the North.”
The initial surveying are scheduled for either August or September and there are already targets Drechsler said are drill-ready. He added the company can develop these targets on its own, yet is looking to find a large partner to undertake future large-scale drilling.
“With the increased investment by a number of majors in Canada's North, it's encouraging that people are realizing, 'Hey this is a politically stable environment that has a wealth of resources, it's time to start taking it more seriously,'” said Drechsler.
Since January, Hoefer said he has seen money coming into mining exploration after a four-year global lull and a 10-year 'doldrum' in the NWT.