Please note this article is over a year old but still very relevant. – Stan Sudol
The Porcupine camp may be more than 100 years old, but that doesn’t mean geologists
have unlocked all its secrets.“There is also a new model in the camp,” van Hees said.
TIMMINS – The Porcupine camp has been producing gold for more than 100 years and there is no indication that is about to change anytime soon. Ed van Hees, Regional Resident Geologist for the Timmins District with the Ministry of Northern Development and Mines, points out between Timmins and Kirkland Lake, there are currently 16 operating mines and 13 of those are gold deposits.
“In terms of gold deposits, there are now, I think, 12 deposits that have produced 10 million ounces and three of them are in Timmins — the Holllinger, McIntyre and Dome mines,” he said.
The boundaries of the Porcupine camp are open to interpretation, depending on who you are talking to, but from van Hees’ perspective it extends 30 or 40 kilometres beyond (Tahoe Resources/Lake Shore Gold’s) Timmins West mine and stretches through the Hollinger, Dome McIntyre and 20 to 30 kilometres to the east of the (Glencore Kidd operations) smelter.
“In terms of north to south, the Pipestone Fault runs north of here,” he said. “The Bradshaw property (Gowest) is sitting on the northern edge.
“The southern edge, historically people thought it was the Porcupine-Dester Fault, but then you have got places like Nighthawk Lake and a few splay faults that run off that, so we could be further south, maybe 40 kilometres or 50 kilometres wide by 150 kilometres long is the Porcupine camp.
“There are going to be things outside of that. You have got Borden Lake, which is completely different geological territory. You can’t say it’s part of the Porcupine camp, but you can say it’s on line.
“Is it related fault wise? The rocks are completely different. You are dealing with a conglomerate. In some respects it’s like the Pamour mine, but the rocks have been metamorphosed to a great extent. We have things like garnets that are in some of the rocks there.
“You are looking at conditions that had a much higher metamorphic rate. Temperatures I am guessing would have been around 400 to 450 C, while the rocks around here probably didn’t see more than 250 to 300 C.
“Around some of the gold deposits there are halos, so we may be looking at a higher temperature than that.
“The Dome mine has minerals like biotite, which start to inch up there, so the conditions may be approaching what we see at Borden Lake, but on a very local scale.”
For the rest of this article: http://www.timminspress.com/2016/06/13/porcupine-camp-remains-mineral-rich