Though it’s barely six months since we last reported on progress at NAN’s 3,601 square kilometre property, which encapsulates the nickel-rich Greenland norite belt (GNB) and where the company was embarking on an ambitious drilling programme, the results and the indication of future discoveries has been so encouraging that it is quite difficult to know where to start.
As NAN’s President and interim CEO Dr Mark Fedikow told us not that long ago: “This year we have said we will drill a minimum of 4,700 metres of core but that could be increased to as much as 10,000 metres if no unforeseen difficulties are encountered.” With their efficient technical and drill team firing on all cylinders a total of 8,773 metres was drilled in 2014.
That is impressive, as were the results obtained with high grade nickel, copper and PGM mineralisation, but there remain many more exploration targets identified and more geophysical surveying required. This summer’s work focused mainly on the Imiak Hill complex, which includes Imiak Hill, Mikissoq (previously referred to as Imiak North) and Spotty Hill, three mineralised zones within 1.6 kilometres of one another, and Fossilik, another large area of norite.
“We went into our 2014 drill programme with the game plan of getting onto the ground as early as possible, and we managed to get in and start ground geophysical surveys in April,” says Fedikow. And these surveys were designed to test gravity as an effective tool to map mineralisation-hosting norite in the subsurface. “We tested gravity because of the significant difference in density between norite and the surrounding felsic gneisses. Concurrently we ran deep time domain EM surveys (TDEM) in the same area. Both surveys started in early April and ran for a good six to eight weeks.”
One question answered satisfactorily was that of how effectively the norite could be mapped below surface, using gravity surveys. “Starting with a desktop-sized outcrop we found we could map it as it plunges beneath a boulder field, or soils or younger rocks. We were very happy with the ground gravity results and with these and the TDEM in hand we continued our drill programme, with the goal of expanding the three targets there.”
One headache that has not yet gone away was caused by the discovery that the very high nickel/copper mineralisation at Imiak Hill was truncated at depth by a fault. “Try as we might using down-hole pulse EM, but to date we have not been able to locate the remainder of that mineralised zone.” Knowing that the mineralisation may not be far away is one thing, finding it another. It has been displaced downwards or sideways and its elusiveness is frustrating. However over the summer NAN seized an opportunity to benchmark on Hudbay Mineral’s geophysical work at the Lalor zinc-copper-gold project in northern Manitoba.
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