Noble Mineral to drill Hearst area property, northern Ontario
Noble Mineral Exploration Inc. [TSXV-NOB; OTCQB-NLPXF], after a delay due to inclement weather, is now ready to initiate its drill program. Extreme hot, dry weather in mid-June gave way to thunderstorms and in some cases tornadoes. Noble was concerned with potential forest fire risk and the health and welfare of their workers. With the coming of more stable weather in July, the company is now ready to start the drill program.
The drill program is planned on 214 claims in Way Township. The claims extend from about 4 to 15 km southwest of the town of Hearst, Ontario. The property area is equivalent to approximately 4,500 hectares or 45 km2. The drill program follows geophysical surveys done to identify targets that may be the source of the mineralized boulder. The recent geophysical program was partially funded by the Ontario Junior Exploration Program and application has been made to the same program to fund the drill program. The program will fund up to $200,000 on a $400,000 exploration program.
Historically, a sample of a metalliferous boulder, brought to the Timmins Mining District Regional Resident Geologist in 2019 by A. Cousineau, and submitted for chemical analysis to Geolabs in Sudbury.
Geolabs determined that the boulder contained: 71.8% copper; 3.5% lead, 1.09% zinc; 252 g/t of silver, 3.79 g/t of gold; 4.43 g/t of palladium; and 2.22 g/t of platinum and consisted primarily of cuprite (van Hees et al., 2020).
In 2021, Noble launched an exploration program to in an effort to identify the source of the boulder. Basal till samples collected from two fences of hand auger holes, located about 100 m and 1 km north of the boulder, produced 35 gold grains. These gold grains define a southeast-northwest trending dispersion train that indicate they were transported southeast by a glacial transport from a source area located to the northwest. The dispersion train begins near a northeast trending magnetic anomaly. The gold grains are predominantly reshaped (24) but also include modified (7) and pristine (4), supporting evidence of a local source.
In 2022 an airborne geophysical survey was flown over the property followed by a ground geophysical survey in November/December 2023. The ground geophysical surveys included 29 line-km of Magnetic, VLF-EM and Induced Polarization Survey. The airborne data was successful in outlining a significant northeast trending magnetic high unit that was traced from the southwest section of the survey block to the northeast corner of the survey block. Compilation of the ground based; detailed magnetic survey was done to highlight the northwest trending fault structure that coincides with the location of the boulder.
This structure extends at least 1,100 metres and is represented by a modest magnetic low signature commencing at the southeast corner of the grid. The structure can be traced across the grid, generally lying along the northern bank of the river, and has offset the modest magnetic high units in the same area. The western edge of the suspected fault terminates next to a northeast-southwest striking cross fault that also affects the strike of the river.
The approximate location of the mineralized Cousineau Boulder appears to coincide with a slight bullseye high at the southeast end of one of the northwest striking cross dike like features.
The initial drill holes will be focused in the vicinity of the boulder location in order to better understand the physical and fault related geology as defined by geophysics done in the Fall of 2023. Additional drilling will be focused on various chargeability and conductive anomalies detected during the recent ground surveys.
Vance White, President and CEO of Noble, said, “We are pleased with the progress on this property and to finally get underway the proposed drill program, the results of which may give us more clues as to the possible source of this rich boulder. While the odds are long, if successful, it could result in a significant find.”