- Multiple gold rich quartz veins
- High grade historical resource open for expansion
The Sparta Property is located on NTS 85P03 & 85P04, 84 km NNE of Yellowknife. The property is underlain by metamorphosed turbidites of the Burwash Formation which have been tightly folded, locally faulted and intruded by granitic rocks of the Prosperous Suite. The property hosts mesothermal lode-gold style mineralization similar to that found at the Tom Mine near Yellowknife. Two showings on the property have seen extensive drilling with small shallow resources defined at each. The GAB Main Showing is a shear-hosted quartz vein, traced for 185 m along strike in outcrop and drilling. The showing in open on strike to the west and down-dip. The NORMIN reports that Treminco Resources calculated a resource of 30,000 T @ 0.31 OPT Au (27,300 t @ 10.63 g/t Au) at GAB.
The Sparta Vein is a classic saddle reef vein developed in the axial zone of a NW striking and plunging, tight to isoclinal recumbent fold. The structure was drill tested with 76 shallow holes in 1946. The veins on each fold limb thicken towards the nose of the fold which was never drill tested and remains a very promising target. Treminco Resources Ltd. conducted mapping and sampling near the Sparta Vein in 1988 and calculated an in-house resource of 3,000 tons at 0.36 OPT (2,730 t @ 12.34 g/t Au) to a depth of 62.5 feet using the historical data.
Other showings on the property include the Mac Lake No. 2 showing, defined by a single sample grading 0.230 oz/ton Au (7.89 g/t Au ), and the Mac Lake No. 3, showing where 4 of 9 samples returned assays between 0.022 oz/ton and 0.256 oz/ton gold (0.75 to 8.78 g/t Au). All of the showings found to date on property appear to lie within a favourable mafic horizon within the Burwash Formation sediments traced from west of the GAB showing, southeast to Mac Lake. This horizon, identified during the last round of exploration at Sparta in 1988, has not been systemically prospected nor tested.
The style, stratigraphic, metamorphic and structural setting of gold mineralization at Sparta is very similar to that found at Atlantic Gold’s Touquoy and Beaver Dam Deposits in Nova Scotia where large gold resources were defined in argillites adjacent to small, high grade saddle reef veins hosting a much smaller gold endowment. All exploration at Sparta predates the recognition of this new style of mineralization. The potential of the Sparta property to host large gold resources in argillite adjacent to the known high-grade saddle reefs is an intriguing, untested target.
