Discovery

Discovery

Tags: archean gabbro greenstone belt proterozoic

Gold Map

The Meliadine gold project (including the Discovery deposit) is located in the Kivalliq District of Nunavut in northern Canada, approximately 25 km northwest of Rankin Inlet on the west coast of Hudson Bay. A private all-weather access road constructed by Agnico Eagle connects Rankin Inlet to the Meliadine project. The current Meliadine exploration camp is located on the shore of Meliadine Lake, approximately 2.3 km east of the Tiriganiaq deposit.

The physical features of the Meliadine region have largely been determined by glaciation. The terrain consists predominantly of broadly rolling uplands and lowlands with little topographical relief (very few hills). Rankin Inlet is located on the shore of Hudson Bay with a mean elevation of 28 m above sea level. Strung out across the landscape are long, sinuous eskers. This undulating landscape is studded with innumerable lakes, ponds, and wetlands. Cryosols are the dominant soils, and are underlain by continuous permafrost with active layers that are usually moist or wet throughout the summer.

Local geology:

Local geology map showing the Discovery deposit area. The purple line indicates a cross section.

Local geology map showing the Discovery deposit area.

Mineralization:

The stratigraphic sequence in the Discovery deposit area strikes northwest-southeast and dips from 45º to 60º to the north.

Clastic turbidites of the Sam Formation are the oldest (northernmost) rocks. As at Tiriganiaq, these overlie the Upper Oxide Formation and its uppermost portion, the “Upper Oxide Iron
Formation”. Chlorite-rich massive basalts of the Wesmeg Formation form the structural footwall to the sequence but occur at least 600 m south of the Discovery deposit. The Lower Fault forms the contact between the Wesmeg and Upper Oxide formations and is interpreted as a basal detachment surface, but in the area of the Discovery deposit it is not exposed and has not been encountered by drilling yet. The Lower Fault therefore represents a potential target for Tiriganiaq-style lode gold vein zones similar to the 1000 lode.

Discovery vertical cross section at 4600E (local grid) showing geology and lode wireframes (indicated by red ore zones):

Discovery vertical cross section

Mineralization in the Discovery gold deposit is strongly associated with shearing and quartz veining within the Upper Oxide Iron Formation, which is strongly folded. The thicker, higher-gold-grade sections are controlled by Z-shaped folds that trend east-northeast and plunge 47º.

Free gold occurs as coatings and fracture fillings in large recrystallized arsenopyrite and pyrrhotite grains, and as disseminations in quartz veins and chlorite layers. Trace amounts of
sphalerite and chalcopyrite are found locally.

Alteration envelopes occur adjacent to quartz-calcite veining and are characterized by hornblende/grunerite-, biotite- and calcite-bearing assemblages that overprinted the pre-existing regional greenschist metamorphic facies.

For the purposes of the current resource estimate, ten domains were developed and are referred to as lodes 5110, 5120, 5130, 5140, 5150, 5210, 5220, 5230, 5240, and 5310. All of these lodes represent the same Upper Oxide Iron Formation unit, but have been subdivided to facilitate modelling of the fold nose. Lodes 5210, 5220, 5230 and 5240 represent the area of the Upper Oxide Iron Formation within the resource area that outcrops and was channel-sampled. To eliminate the influence of these higher grade channel samples, they were excluded for variography and resource estimation, since the QA/QC and sampling protocol for the channel-sampling had not been documented.

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