EAST HIGHLAND PROJECT
Pele’s Highland gold properties are located approximately 100 kilometres southeast of Hemlo in Northern Ontario, along the Michipicoten Greenstone Belt, home to several past producing gold mines including the Renabie Mine (over one-million ounces) and where Richmont Mines Inc. is now operating the Island Gold Mine and milling complex. The Highland properties have excellent geologic potential for the discovery of a mineable gold deposit similar to Island.
The Highland properties include shear-hosted gold occurrences along the regional Goudreau-Localsh Deformation Zone (“GLDZ”) associated with quartz veins that commonly contain visible gold within intensely deformed and altered Archean metavolcanic, metasedimentary, and intrusive rocks.
The East Highland Gold Project is comprised of more than 3,300 hectares along the GLDZ in Jacobson and Riggs townships. Pele focused its exploration efforts here in the late-1990s, successfully completing a 10,000-tonne bulk sample at the Markes Zone which returned positive cash flow when gold was trading at just US$300 per ounce. The sample was processed at Hemlo, returning 1,702 ounces of gold at an average grade of 5.1 grams per tonne (g/t).
At the ‘A’ zone, approximately 3,800 tonnes of material was mined from a small open pit, also returning an average gold grade of about 5 g/t. Only two of five mineralized benches planned for the bulk sample were actually mined at the time and Pele management believes that drilling is likely to delineate additional near-surface, mineable tonnage. Prior to the bulk sample, drilling had established that the ‘A’ zone continues to a vertical depth of approximately 200 metres and that the gold-bearing trend appears to remain open along strike to the east and at depth. A 1997 report by Peter Bevan, P. Eng., indicates that the ‘A’ zone hosts a historic (non NI 43-101 compliant) inferred resource of 101,001 tonnes averaging 7.33 g/t gold, to a depth of 190 metres.
With outstanding local infrastructure including three nearby modern gold mills, management believes there is excellent potential to establish revenue generating operations at East Highland.
Pele recently announced the commencement of a first-phase 31-hole, 1,000-metre drill program that includes targets at the ‘A’, Lone Ranger, Haystack, and Golden Eagle East zones, aimed primarily at locating near surface, mineable gold mineralization. The drill plan also includes the extension of two historic holes toward another potential gold zone parallel to the ‘A’ zone.
At Lone Ranger, nine channel samples over a 100-metre strike length, gave results ranging from non detect (“ND”) to 14.76 g/t gold over 3.6 metres across a portion of mineralized outcrop. The Lone Ranger mineralized zone, approximately 40 metres wide, has been traced in outcrop over a 160-metre strike length, and remains open along strike. Samples with high grade values carrying visible gold are associated with widespread stockwork quartz veining carrying variable pyrite in the felsic unit. Previous channel sampling at Lone Ranger returned gold values ranging from ND to 34.0 g/t gold over 2.0 metres.
At Haystack, 23 channel samples over a 675-metre strike length on both the East and West zones, gave results ranging from ND to 3.2 g/t gold over 2.2 metres, 2.84 g/t gold over 3.05 metres, and 2.39 g/t gold over 1.2 metres. Other samples gave anomalous gold values, defining a continuous gold zone over a strike length exceeding 500 metres with all samples exceeding 0.5 g/t gold over an average width of 3 metres. In this zone, a higher grade section averaged 2.8 g/t gold over 135 metres of strike length.
At Golden Eagle East, the only channel sample taken gave 0.78 g/t gold over 5.85 metres, where stripping exposed a portion of a mineralized ironstone unit containing pods of mottled grey white quartz veins carrying strong sulphides, mainly pyrite.
The East Highland Gold Project is 100-percent owned by Pele Gold Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company.
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