Trillium Gold Mines (TSXV:TGM) has begun its comprehensive exploration program on its recently-consolidated Confederation Belt Project. From the separately held properties, the company has consolidated them into one 54,362-hectare, contiguous land package that spans 72 kilometres from east to west. Crews are mobilizing, and work has begun on the project. The Confederation Project is not just the company’s most significant project – it is the most significant exploration project in the Red Lake District. It has the potential to contain further Dixie LP Fault analogues, other Red Lake-style gold mineralization and critical minerals.

Trillium has initiated early exploration permit applications for drilling and trenching, and the company expects to receive them sometime in early summer 2022. The company has planned an initial 6,000 metres of drilling throughout the project area for targets that have already been systematically researched, prioritized, and deemed drill-ready. It will consider further drilling once results from the exploration are received.

Russell Starr, President and CEO of Trillium Gold commented in a press release: “Our strategy to consolidate the Confederation belt properties has positioned Trillium Gold as the dominant exploration company in the Red Lake District today. Many former VMS-rich districts are well endowed with gold, and the Dixie LP Fault deposit, lying on the same stratigraphic trend as Trillium’s contiguous claim block, is possibly another example. A large portion of the property is accessible via long-standing logging roads. We believe we are at the nexus of a new era in this rapidly developing gold camp.”  

William Paterson, Trillium Gold’s Vice President of Exploration also commented: “Our geological team has now begun the exploration work with reconnaissance traverses, drill hole sighting and ground-truthing of work performed by previous operators. We have an unprecedented opportunity to explore for LP Fault-type gold deposits along a structure that is many times larger and equally as prospective as Dixie.”

Some important attributes of the property include:

• Over 110 linear kilometres along the eastern extensions of both the major crustal Red Lake and Dixie LP Fault structures.
• Several high-potential mafic-to-felsic structural contacts on-strike to the east of the Kinross Dixie Project associated with the eastern continuation of the LP fault zone.
• The Panama Lake portion of the property shows gold potential in three identified zones while further compilation work has identified other structural and lithological dislocations that warrant priority follow-up work.
• Other high-potential areas to be tested along the northern margin of the Project area, associated with the major structure hosting Evolution Mining’s Red Lake Operations.
• Demonstrated gold and historic base-metal deposits; importantly, strategic metal occurrences will be additional target elements for exploration in 2022.
• Comprehensive data collection, compilation and interpretation have generated many gold and base-metal targets for follow-up in the 2022 exploration program.

Figure 1: Trillium Gold’s Confederation Belt Project showing areas of focus for 2022 and planned activities, selected 2021 exploration results, and major structures (some interpreted). Geology from Geological Survey of Canada.

Throughout the Confederation Belt property, work will be performed to follow up on the high priority SGH anomalies from 2021. This planned work includes further soil sampling, lithogeochemical sampling and assaying of historical drill holes that were never previously assayed for gold (this is a very cost-effective activity where historical base-metal focused drilling has already been performed in those areas identified as having high gold potential). Systematic prospecting and mapping programs across the Project area are designed to explore for new deposits and further follow up on results from the 2021 field work (Figure 1).

Geology & Mineral Potential

The geology throughout the Project area shows several features key to gold mineralization: felsic-intermediate volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks, mafic to felsic transitions, iron formations and chemical sediments, unconformities, large regional structures with known association to gold mineralization (e.g. the Dixie Project and Red Lake Mine), and, locally, on lower-order structures, complex structurally prepared ground that focus fluid flows and develop mineral deposits.

The Company’s exploration work and results from 2021 combined with exhaustive compilation work of historical data recently acquired, have identified several prospective areas hosting a variety of styles of gold targets including elevated gold content coincident with volcanogenic massive sulphide alteration halos. Often these halos are associated with structures and prospective lithology, suggesting the possibility of a later-stage gold enrichment mechanism or hybrid-style signatures.

A key area of focus will be the recently acquired Wenasaga Property, spatially associated with a dilation zone identified on the LP Fault extension. This deep-rooted structure would provide a conduit for gold-bearing fluids and the dilation zone creates the conditions for this gold to be deposited, whether rheological or chemically through widespread alteration. Preliminary work has already begun on this portion of the property.

Further east, the Panama Property contains two highly prospective gold-mineralized trends that remain largely untested. Major structures that transect the property appear to be splays from or are the eastern extension of the Dixie LP Fault. There are multiple gold and VMS-style mineralization occurrences identified on the property and a field program has been designed to expand on and evaluate the lateral continuity of these mineralized trends.

Figure 2: Trillium Gold’s Confederation Belt, Satterly Lake and Swain Lake Projects with major faults shown (some interpreted). Geology from Geological Survey of Canada.

Satterly Lake and Swain Lake

These properties, located approximately 20 km and 35 km northeast of the Confederation Project and 90 km east of Red Lake, host structural, lithological and geophysical features important to gold mineralization (Figure 2). Initial field work will be performed on these projects utilizing floatplane-supported remote camps and will consist of prospecting and sampling. Historically, there has been little ground-based work performed on these properties. Trillium flew a high resolution helimagnetic survey over the then-current Satterly Lake property in 2021.

The Satterly Lake property is relatively unexplored, but several mineral occurrences are documented in the area. The Hanson (Au) and Loydex (Cu/Zn) occurrences are found on the property, the past producing Sol D’Or Mine (ore grading 19.2 g/t Au) lies immediately west and Falcon Gold’s Springpole West property to the east, with a diamond drill hole intercept of 19.4 g/t Au over 30cm within a property-wide fault zone hosted in a quartz vein-stockwork system.

The Swain Lake property encompasses a nine-kilometre stretch of the Swain Lake Deformation Zone (SLDF), over a gentle flexure point where the strike changes from a northeast trend to more easterly. Numerous gold occurrences are documented along the strike of this regional-scale structure. The property is located 8 km northwest of First Mining’s Springpole Lake property, which is reported as one of the largest undeveloped gold projects in Canada (Preliminary Economic Assessment, completed in November 2019, reported an Indicated Resource of 4,670,000 oz of gold and 24,190,000 oz of silver).

Within a six-kilometre radius of the Swain Lake property there lies the Argosy Mine (101,875 oz Au produced), the Richardson Lake Mine (1,126 oz of gold produced grading 60.7 g/t Au with an unclassified historical resource of 140,051 oz Au published in the Northern Miner [June 20, 1988]), the MacIntyre Mine reported to have produced 23 oz of gold in 1934-35 and First Mining’s Horseshoe Island prospect with a historical unclassified resource of 125,093 oz Au (OGS MDI record 52N08NW00020).

Source: Trillium Gold Mines

The above references an opinion and is for information purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a licensed professional for investment advice. The author is not an insider or shareholder of any of the companies mentioned above.