Background and General Overview
In May 2020, Benton Resources announced that the Company entered into a binding Letter of Intent (“LOI”) with White Metal Resources Corp (TSX-V: WHM) (“WHM”) whereby Benton can earn up to a 70% interest in WHM’s Far Lake project located 80km west of Thunder Bay, Ontario.
Recent exploration completed by WHM led to the discovery of a high-grade, massive sulphide copper occurrence. WHM trenching and sampling programs at Far Lake provided results that include a 0.7m channel sample across massive sulphide that assayed 22.0% Cu, 30.2 g/t Ag, and 0.25 g/t Au as well as another channel sample that graded 3.54% Cu over 3m, including 4.96% Cu over 1m. Mineralization is located within the FL#1 structure; a northwest-southeast trending, brecciated and silicified zone that bisects a regional granitic host. Sulphide mineralization in the structure consists of chalcopyrite plus pyrite with rare covellite and has been delineated on surface for approximately 2100m and remains open in all directions. In addition, a parallel zone approximately 2km west of the high grade copper occurrence was located in the spring of 2020 and exhibits a similar, yet more widespread and intense, brecciation and silicification with widths exceeding 200m. This second structure, FL#2, has been traced intermittently over a 5km strike length with chalcopyrite mineralization occurring frequently throughout.
In addition to the large mineralized and silicified zones, the project also contains a boulder that was assayed by WHM and contained 0.293% Cu, 1.71g/t Pd, 0.3g/t Pt and 0.219g/t Au, 1500m SE of the copper discovery. Locating the source of this boulder will be an important activity to prove that Far Lake has the potential to host not only copper-silver-gold, but also PGE’s. The appearance of the boulder suggests the bedrock source is not far and only travelled a short distance during glaciation.
Prior to the work completed by WHM in 2017, the Far Lake area as seen no documented historical exploration. The Project has excellent infrastructure with multiple logging roads accessing the property via the Trans-Canada Highway and is strategically located along the Quetico Fault and between Benton’s Bark and Baril Lake West projects (currently under option to Rio Tinto Exploration Canada) and the Escape Lake and Thunder Bay North deposits which Benton sold under option rights to Clean Air Metals Inc.
In recent field work, Benton has confirmed the presence of anomalous Rare Earth Elements and uranium associated with the large felsic intrusive complex being explored. REEs and uranium are common characterizing minerals of IOCG deposits around the world. Benton’s anomalous REE/Uranium samples were taken within a highly magnetic granitic body (near a 500m long REE soil anomaly) and within a hematite breccia located approximately 500m southwest of the Far Lake main zone. The Company considers these occurrences to be important in helping target the potential core of a large tonnage IOCG deposit.
Pursuant to the LOI, the Company can acquire from WHM an initial 60% interest in the Property followed by a second option to acquire an additional 10% interest in the Property.
The Company may, subject to regulatory approval, exercise the Initial Option by paying $205,000, issuing 1.6 million common shares and completing $1 million in exploration expenditures over four years. Within 90 days of completing the Initial Option, the Company may at its election exercise the Second Option by issuing 500,000 common shares to WHM; and completing an additional $1 million of exploration expenditures on the Property on or before the fifth anniversary of the agreement.
Drilling at Far Lake
