Pele: Sudbury Overview

The Sudbury project consists of approximately 350 mining claim units covering 14,000 acres in the prolific Sudbury Mining Camp of northern Ontario. The property extends from the northern boundary of Levack Township into Harty and Foy townships, north of FNX Mining Company operations and about one kilometre southwest of the Foy Offset Dike.

In July 2006, Pele signed an option agreement with Wallbridge Mining Company allowing Wallbridge to earn up to a 60-percent in the project by issuing 1.05-million of its common shares to Pele and by making $1.2-million in work expenditures by year-end 2009. Wallbridge can increase its interest to 72.5-percent by completing a bankable feasibility study and arranging financing for the project through to commercial production. Wallbridge is operating the project during the option period.

In late-2005, prior to the Wallbridge agreement, Pele confirmed the presence of an offset dike on its Sudbury claims with a strike extension exceeding three kilometres on its claims.  Offset dikes in the Sudbury area have hosted extensive Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization as well as several successful mining operations.  Pele also located several occurrences of Sudbury breccia, a host lithology often associated with footwall-style Ni-Cu-PGE mineralization.  A subsequent airborne survey identified several conductors on the property, indicating possible sulfide mineralization. 

In late-2007, Wallbridge announced the discovery of extensive zones of PGE, chlorine, and pathfinder element enrichment within a belt of Sudbury Breccia that extends over a strike length of approximately eight kilometres and within a corridor up to two kilometres wide.  These favourable rocks indicate the passage of mineralizing fluids similar to breccia rocks hosting copper-PGE mineralization at the Strathcona (Xstrata) and McCreedy West (FNX) mines in the nearby Levack Trough. Across the southern third of the property, the belt has been mapped and linecutting has commenced to establish a 120 line-kilometre grid for an induced polarization survey, which will be followed by a drill progam in early-2008. Meanwhile, an isolated two-line AeroTEM III anomaly situated near one of the discrete enrichment zones has been drill-tested.

Wallbridge also announced that it has extended the second Pele Offset dyke (which it discovered in 2006) approximately three kilometres northward to near the northern property boundary, about one kilometre west of the main Pele Offset Dyke (discovered by prospectors in 2005).

The Sudbury Mining Camp is the most productive nickel mining district in the world, continuing to deliver world-class base and precious metal output after more than a century of operation. The camp’s dominant feature is the Sudbury Basin, a 60-kilometre long elliptical structure that features Ni-Cu-PGE deposits along the contact and footwall of the Sudbury Igneous Complex, which forms the outer rim of the Sudbury Basin, as well as within offset dikes that emanate radially outward from it. Offset dikes have become the target of progressively more intense exploration interest because they have hosted several successful operations, including the Copper Cliff and Worthington mines. The nearby Foy Offset Dike was also host to a past producing nickel mine, just east of Pele’s property.