On geological maps of northeastern Ontario, the
Kenogamissi batholith sits like a giant blister on the heel of the
Abitibi greenstone belt, interrupting the northeast-southwest flow
of the prolific belt and creating a physical and psychological barrier
to exploration. Why venture to the other side of the intrusion when
the richest ore has always been found in Abitibi proper?
Precisely because the other side - namely the Swayze greenstone
belt to the west and, to a lesser extent, the Shining Tree belt to
the south - is relatively underexplored, according to several small
companies returning to these areas to take advantage of the resurgence
in the gold price and easy access to flow-through financing.
"When people start going back to look at the Swayze, then you know
it's good times in the industry," says Brian Atkinson, regional resident
geologist for the Timmins district. He considers the carbonate-altered
mafic volcanics of the Swayze belt to be prime hunting ground for
gold deposits similar to those found in the Timmins camp.
Geologists have long postulated that the Swayze belt may be the
western extension of the Abitibi, with the same potential for giant
ore deposits. But the theory has never been proven, and Swayze, through
dotted with mineral occurances, has yet to yield a significant deposit.
The Shining Tree belt has a similar history of small-fry discoveries.
But several companies, including VenCan
Gold (VCG-V), are
keeping up the search. Armed with a strong gold price and recent
research from the Ontario Geological Survey (OGS), VenCan is focusing
its efforts on Cayenne and Chili properties within the Woman River
anticline on the Swayze belt, southwest of Timmins.
"We felt as if we had to find something that was a little contrarian,
but also fish where the fish are," says Kirk McKinnon, president
and chief executive officer of VenCan. "I think we're the first movers
in a new look at the western Abitibi."
Pretty daring of McKinnon, calling it the western Abitibi. But then
VenCan's entire business plan rests on the premise that Swayze is
not an independent belt at all but rather an extension of the Abitibi
that was merely cut off by the batholith intrusion.
The two belts do have similar stratigraphy and tectonic
history, according to a 2003 open-file report by OGS geologists Jens
Becker and Keith Benn that analyzes extensive new structural, geochemical,
geophysicial and geochronological evidence. The VenCan properties
themselves are underlain by units now considered to be time-stratigraphic
equivalents of the prolific portion of the Abitibi.
VenCan plans to focus its exploration efforts on banded iron formation
and shear-hosted gold deposits.
The complete article may be obtained through The
Northern Miner Online service.
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