Taking Sunbeam towards drill-ready status

Right now, we’re focused heavily on bringing several of our projects to drill-ready status.
 
I showed how we’re moving towards this at Esa in my last letter, and progress is continuing on the ground as I write.
 
Today, however, I want to zone in on another of our gold properties: Sunbeam.
 
We acquired Sunbeam – which is based in northwest Ontario – from Nuinsco last year.
 
And really, it’s a project of two halves. Two halves, I should add, that we believe to represent equally exciting prospects.
 
With two teams on the ground, this is something our work on the ground right now is very much reflecting…
 
Historical potential 
One of our teams on the ground at Sunbeam is focused on the historical high grade, past-producing gold mine present within the project area.
 
This operated for seven years from 1898, with output totalling some 944 ounces of gold in one year alone.
 
However, it was shuttered in 1905 and – for unknown reasons – was never explored again by its owners. Moreover, no-one else could work on the project as it was subject to a 100-year lease.
 
That lease lapsed several years ago.
 
So, the chance now exists to explore Sunbeam’s true potential through the lens of the advances in mining and exploration technology that have emerged since it was last visited.
 
“Exploring for gold in the shadow of a headframe”, as the old saying goes…
 
Nuinsco was the first to do this.
 
The company conducted surface sampling in the mine area that produced grades of up to 83.5g/t gold from underground waste rocks.
 
It also completed follow-up drilling along strike and down dip of known gold mineralisation. This returned grades of up to 93.3g/t gold within zones of strong deformation extending to untested depths.
 
Now the project is under our ownership, we are taking these early, interesting signs even further.
 
Our goal is to examine the potential for the body hosting the old mine to go down deeper and across a wider strike, given the continuation of gold grades.
 
Exploring in both directions to untested ground seems an obvious place to begin developing a resource based around a historical, past producing high grade mine.

Wider package 
Moving on from Sunbeam’s historical merits, and our second Sunbeam team is focusing on the opportunity present across the wider project area.
 
You see, while the historical mine perhaps presents the “headline” prospect, it represents just a small part of the wider 48km2 Sunbeam land package we now control.
 
A package where encouraging early signs of prospectivity have been identified, to boot.
 
Indeed, the area is home to 30km of mineralised trend representing 15km of target domain within which gold mineralisation occurs in quartz-veining.
 
We know this, because of several gold showings, including:

• Pettigrew (where 100m of shafts returned highlight intersections of 19.4g/t over 0.63m and 15.17g/t over 1.37m in two zones);

• Roy, which is projected to sit on a sub-parallel mineralisation trend within an identified strike of more than 10km; and

• A number of additional gold occurrences associated within regional structural trends. These include Rubble, where assays of up to 1.42oz per ton gold were obtained from pyritized and iron carbonate altered rocks.

Add in the fact that the Sunbeam project area has been derisked by quality infrastructure and the nearby presence of Agnico Eagle’s Hammond Reef exploration project, which hosts open pit probable mineral reserves of 3.3Moz…
 
And you’ve got what we believe to be a great regional play.

Our geologists have been on site since early May working on the trends, mapping, sampling, and prospecting with our CEO Marc Sale now onsite directing operations.
 
They have already identified some fantastic opportunities unexamined in modern times, including a 3m-wide quartz vein.
 
Right time, right place 
In summary, Sunbeam is obviously an overlooked opportunity, and taking it towards drill-ready status at any time would be exciting.
 
It’s particularly exciting, however, to be doing it right now against a bullish gold backdrop.
 
We look forward to releasing more results and updates on our progress as we have them. In the meantime, you can learn more about Sunbeam by reading our deep-dive into the project.