With a string of gold discoveries at its Perron Property in Quebec in recent years, Amex Exploration (TSXV: AMX) has become a market darling – and a prime example of the value of exploration success within the Canadian junior mining sector.
Adding to its reputation, Amex made the market sit up and really take notice of the potential of its Perron Gold Corridor in 2020 when it announced the discovery of the High Grade Zone (HGZ).
In a massively successful 2020, Amex:
- Expanded its drill programme at Perron from 100,000m to 300,000m, going from three drills on site to 10 drills by mid-November, making the Amex drilling campaign one of the largest and most aggressive exploration programmes in Canada last year
- Expanded three known gold zones along strike and to depth and identified the 3.2km long Perron Gold Corridor along the 15km of prospective thrust faults to be explored
- Identified high-grade gold mineralization in the down to 1.1km vertical depth at the HGZ
The company created more headlines in January 2021, when it announced the discovery of a new high-grade gold structure by drilling an intersection returning 31.87 g/t Au over 5.10m on a new target area located approximately 650m north-west of the HGZ and 500m north-east of the Grey Cat Zone (GCZ).
Executive Chairman, Jacques Trottier, was quick to label the new high-grade gold area as a game changer for the Perron project.
Mr Trottier also highlighted the exciting potential of the Beaupré Rhyolite Bloc (BRB) (namely the Normetal Fault to the north and the Perron Fault to the south) in the Perron area.
‘Nearology’ play
There is no doubt that “nearology” is a sound exploration tool. Snapping up land around a new discovery not only provides a company with access to proven geology, but it can also boost a company’s share price and create access to new funds to test their new “nearology” play.
That is certainly what a group of junior explorers are hoping for as they attempt to follow up Amex Exploration’s spectacular success at Perron.
Generic Gold Corp. (CNSX: GGC), Sky Gold Corp. (TSXV: SKYG), and Starr Peak Mining Ltd. (TSXV: STE) have been quick to take up exploration acreage in the Perron area and to fast-track drilling activities.
Generic Gold Corp. announced in early May that it was planning a 7,500m drill programme on its Belvais project, where the western extent of the property is contiguous with the Perron Project and Starr Peak’s NewMétal property.
The large, fully funded drill programme will target both orogenic gold and gold-rich VMS targets and will be completed in two phases, with an initial 3,000m drilled in Phase 1 and a 4,500m follow-up programme completed in Phase 2 following receipt of assays.
Drill targets were generated following compilation of all available data, including recently completed VTEM and soil sampling surveys as well as historical drilling and geophysical work.
Sky’s the limit
Sky Gold Corp. announced recently it had signed two definitive agreements for two contiguous claim blocks comprising the Imperial Property – which shares 4.7km of its northern border with the Perron Property.
The two Projects, named La Reine and Le Roi, comprise a combined 228 claims covering approximately 6,575.84ha in the gold and VMS-prospective Abitibi Greenstone Belt region of Ontario and Quebec.
CEO and President, Mike England, said the acquisition of the Imperial Property is a result of over 12 months of discussions and negotiations.
“New geological interpretations in Quebec have now been leading to very exciting discoveries, such as Amex and Starr Peak have seen, and we are eager to begin exploring for gold and base metals in very similar geological units in Quebec, as well as on trend across the border into Ontario.”
Historical exploration efforts across the Property have resulted in the discovery of 10 mineral showings (Mineral Deposit Inventory Record – Ontario Government) across the project. Historical exploration work includes diamond drilling, overburden drilling, airborne magnetics, ground geophysics, including magnetics and electromagnetics, surface geochemistry, geological mapping, and prospecting.
There is no doubt that ‘nearology’ is a sound exploration tool
The Property is crossed east-west by the Abitibi Thrust Fault, which dips 70 degrees to the south. The overall lithological package strikes east-west and deepens steeply to the south and is contiguous to the Amex Exploration property to the north-east.
Reaching the peak
Starr Peak Mining recently confirmed a significant expansion to its ongoing drilling campaign on its NewMétal property, which lies directly east of Amex’s Perron Property.
The current drilling campaign follows Starr Peak’s June 2020 decision to grab additional land next to the Perron Project. The expanded land position at the NewMétal property included 11 claims covering 468ha, growing the NewMétal property to a total of 64 mineral claims covering 1,888ha of highly prospective ground. The newly acquired claims comprise a block directly adjacent and on trend to the Perron project.
The NewMétal project also includes the past-producing Normétal Mine, from which ~10.1M tonnes of 2.15% Cu, 5.12% Zn, 0.549 g/t Au, and 45.25 g/t Ag were produced.
Chairman and CEO, Johnathan More, said that owing to significant high-grade volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) intercepts in the company’s first drill holes, Starr Peak has now elected to increase its drilling programme from 5,000m to 20,000m. The company has three drill rigs in operation.
The company has discovered a discrepancy in the preliminary compilation of historical information pertinent to the Normétal Mine area, determining that the longitudinal section presented to date wrongly positioned numerous historical stopes mined by the Normétal mine.
Starr Peak believes these zones and historical stopes possibly represent a separate mineralized horizon located to the north of, and parallel to, the Normétal mine horizon, rather than along strike as previously represented.
The longitudinal projection for this zone would normally be hidden by the mine horizon longitudinal projection and, for this reason, was presented as an inset to the west of the mine longitudinal. The property wide longitudinal section will reflect this revision going forward, and the company says this may actually open a large untested area of the property to new exploration.
With thousands of metres of drilling programmes underway and more on the drawing board, there will certainly be lots of exciting news coming out of Quebec this year.
