VMS Ventures has actively explored the property using historic VTEM survey results and a combination of prospecting, mapping, geochemical sampling and diamond drilling. In 2011 a two-hole drill program and mechanical trenching were undertaken. A total of 242 metres were drilled to test two separate Versatile Time-Domain Electromagnetic (VTEM) airborne geophysical anomalies with coincident magnetic highs. Drill hole BC-11-002 intersected 8.90 metres of 1.00 g/t Au, in a heterolithologic fragmental unit at the contact with an oxide to sulphide facies iron formation. Locally, the oxide facies iron formation is sulphidized and is mineralized with pyrite, pyrrhotite and minor chalcopyrite. A sulphide-rich interval within the iron formation assayed 2.43% copper over 0.40 metres.
Following the 2011 drill program, a new base metal showing was discovered in the central portion of the property. An excavator was utilized to remove overburden, followed by power washing of the outcrop, geological mapping and channel sampling. Highlights from the channel sample assays include 4.77% zinc, 1.17% copper, 23 g/t silver and 0.85% lead. This fracture-controlled mineralization is hosted by a gossanous andesitic unit within an intrusive marginal breccia zone of the Cartier Batholith.
Some experimental work was completed on extraction of alluvial gold from sand and gravel on the property. Simple panned concentrates of particulate gold-bearing sand and gravel returned significant gold contents. A large portion of the gold grains recovered appeared angular or exhibiting other characteristics suggesting they may originate from a nearby bedrock source (or lode gold) deposit. A major shear zone, the Millnet Fault cross-cuts the property in the vicinity of where historical gold grains in alluvium have been discovered and this geological structure was the target of investigation for this program.
Early in 2015, the Company completed twenty-one (21) reverse circulation holes on the property. Eighty-two (82) overburden samples and twenty-five (25) bedrock samples were collected from these holes. The average gravel sample was 2.2 metres while the bedrock samples were 1.5 metre intervals. The average depth of the completed holes was 12.4 metres. The gravel samples were processed to extract their heavy mineral fraction and to visually separate any gold grains. All heavy mineral concentrations (HMC) and bedrock samples were analyzed geochemically by Actlabs Ltd. of Ancaster, Ontario.
Bedrock was intersected in 20 of the 21 holes completed on the project. Quartz monzonite of the Cartier Batholith was intersected in fifteen of the holes. The contact with the Roberts-Hutton-Parkin Greenstone belt and the Cartier Batholith is very discordant. The Milnet Fault, which was the target of the RC program, was found to be exactly in its expected position but was un-mineralized.
Gold grains and heavy mineral geochemistry of the gravel showed high concentrations near the “Maki Showing” from hole RC#20 with 225 grains of gold recovered. The grains have very similar morphologies and exterior fineness as those from the 2014 surface gravel samples. RC#19, located ~300 metres northeast of the Maki Showing, yielded three weak gold grain anomalies in the upper three samples of the hole. Only five other gravel samples from five separate holes drilled on the esker yielded anomalous levels of gold grains.
The gold occurrence at the Maki Showing in a filled Kettle Basin is not a true placer because the average size of the gold grains is only nominally coarser than the parent till and only minor levels of other heavy minerals such as magnetite are present. One scenario, which may have led to the formation of the gold occurrence, is the till on the property has such a high gold grain background that it is concentrating the grains from a very large volume (3 to 6 million m3) of till that moved through a spillway and filling a Kettle lake.