Casault Project, Québec, Canada

Project Snapshot

Status:

Early exploration stage

Location:

Detour Fenelon Gold Trend ~40 km east of the Detour Lake mine (Agnico Eagle Mines)

Commodity:

Gold, base metals (VMS)

Ownership:

Option to acquire up to 65%

Current exploration activities:

Geophysics and field work have also been completed on the property. Drill testing of grassroots exploration targets on the Casault East Block are planned for 2024.

From February to March 2023, the Company completed 24 sonic drill holes for a till program in the Eastern Block of Casault, testing a major structure, interpreted to be a play of the SLDZ.

Mineral resource:

None

  • Overview

    The Casault project is located approximately 110 km west of the town of Matagami between Wallbridge’s Martinière and Detour East gold properties. Wallbridge has an option to acquire up to a 65% interest in the 177 km2 project from Midland Exploration. Casault covers more than 20 km of the Sunday Lake Deformation Zone, which hosts   the Detour Lake mine 40 km to the west in Ontario. The option consolidates Wallbridge’s district-scale land position to over 900 km2 along the Detour-Fenelon Gold Trend, uniting the Company’s holdings seamlessly to the Québec/Ontario border.

    The 322-claim Casault project hosts the Vortex Zone, a syenite-associated disseminated gold mineralized system grading up to 1.38 g/t gold over 26.5 metres (drilling intersection) and traced over a distance of 1.5 km. Gold-bearing porphyry intrusions have been identified in the northeast corner of the property.

    Maps & Images (click to enlarge)

    Regional Overview Geology
    Modified after Visual Capitalist “History of the Abitibi”
  • Current Program

    On June 18, 2020, Wallbridge consolidated its land position along the Detour-Fenelon Gold Trend by entering into the Casault option agreement with Midland Exploration Inc. (“Midland”), giving the Company control over the entire 830 km2 of this underexplored belt.

    Under the terms of the agreement, the Company can acquire up to an undivided 50% interest in the property by funding phase one expenditures of $5 million and cash payments of $600,000 over five years with a minimum commitment of $1.75 million in the first two years ($0.75 million by the first anniversary and $1 million by the second anniversary of entering into the agreement). During the option period, Wallbridge shall have the right to act as operator of the property. On September 29, 2023, the Company and Midland amended the option agreement on the Casault property to extend the June 30, 2024 spending requirement of $2,000,000 to on or before June 30, 2025. Upon completion of phase one expenditures, the Company has the option to increase its undivided interest in the Casault property to 65% by incurring additional expenditures and/or making cash payments of $6 million within two years from the date of earning the initial 50% interest.

    Readers should also consult the Company’s latest AIF for details on the Casault option agreement.

    Between July and September 2021, Wallbridge completed a 13-hole drill program for a total of 5,256 m, testing a variety of grassroots exploration targets at Casault. Drilling focused on the unexplored northern part of the Property, within 1 to 2 km north of the SLDZ, on the same assemblage of rocks that hosts the Company’s Martiniere gold system, approximately 4 to 12 km to the East. Final results of this drill program were reported on March 30, 2022.

    In addition to 6.85 g/t Au over 2.00 metres in CAS-21-123 reported on October 21, 2021, the drill program successfully identified gold mineralization near the eastern border of the property, toward Martiniere. Drill holes CAS-21-126 to CAS-21-130 all intersected anomalous gold mineralization associated with a volcanic assemblage, a newly discovered ultramafic intrusive complex and the same northwest-southeast structure that is interpreted to control the mineralization intersected in hole CAS-21-123. Structures of this orientation are known to be important conduits for gold at Fenelon, Martiniere, and as reported here, at Grasset and Casault.

    A follow-up program of three drill holes (993 m) further testing this newly identified gold mineralized environment was completed in the second quarter of 2022.

    From February to March 2023, the Company completed a sonic drill-for-till program in the Eastern Block of Casault, testing a major structure, interpreted to be a play of the SLDZ. This was the first such program ever completed in the Detour-Fenelon belt, and this exploration method is believed to be a promising technology to detect buried gold deposits. Sampling of the basal till and the bedrock was completed, and the results are pending.

    Drill testing of grassroots exploration targets on the Casault East Block areis planned for 2024.

    Maps & Images (click to enlarge)

    Casault Gold Property 2021 to 2022 Drill Hole Information
  • Brief History

    Between 2015 and 2020, Casault was under a joint venture agreement between Midland Exploration and SOQUEM. Midland regained 100 % ownership of the property by way of an agreement on February 27, 2020.

    To date, a total of 38,550 m of drilling has been completed on the property, which equates to only 218 metres per square kilometre, highlighting how underexplored this area is.

    Those exploration efforts led to the 2017 discovery of the Vortex Zone, along with other mineralized intersections elsewhere on the property, including 10.4 g/t Au over 1.45 min drill hole CAS-12-07.

  • Geology and Mineralization

    Casault is located along the Detour-Fenelon Gold Trend and covers more than 20 km of the SLDZ, which hosts the Detour Lake mine 40 km to the west in Ontario.

    The SLDZ separates the Manthet domain to the north (dominated by gabbros and basalts) and the Rivière Turgeon domain to the south (clastic sediments akin to Porcupine sediments). Intermediate volcanics are bounded by the deformation zone in between the two domains. The Turgeon pluton (a hornblende-biotite bearing diorite) was emplaced to the south with the northern contact defined by the SLDZ. Finally, a polygenetic conglomeritic basin, Lac Causalt, is present in the center of the property.

    The Vortex Zone, discovered in 2017, is the most significant gold mineralized system known on the property and has been described in detail by Castonguay et al., 2020  and the following description is taken from this source:
    https://geoscan.nrcan.gc.ca/starweb/geoscan/servlet.starweb?path=geoscan/downloade.web&search1=R=323661.

    The zone is located at the western tip of the Lac Casault conglomerate basin at the contact between tholeiitic and calc-alkaline volcanic and volcaniclastic units of the Manthet Group. The west-trending, high-strain auriferous zone is spatially associated with subalkaline to reddish albite-sericite-hematite-altered alkaline porphyritic dykes. Gold-bearing quartz veins are transposed, boudinaged, and folded, but some are locally oblique and cut the main foliation. Strain increases from north to south and several steeply north-dipping mineralized intervals were identified. Zone 475 consists of deformed quartz-carbonate-sulphide veins in sheared carbonate-chlorite-sericite-altered andesitic blocky tuff with 5 to 20 vol.% pyrite (locally semi-massive) and 3 to 5 vol.% magnetite. Zone 450 comprises deformed quartz-carbonate (ankerite)±tourmaline veins and disseminated pyrite (2–5 vol.%) associated with high-strain zones and hydrothermal breccia.

    Highlight intersections from the Vortex Zone include 1.38 g/t Au over 26.2 m, including 7.87 g/t Au over 2.22 m in drill hole CAS-17-96 and 1.30 g/t Au over 23.5 m, including 3.56 g/t Au over 6.0 m in hole CAS-17-95.

     

    Maps & Images (click to enlarge)

    Geology of Wallbridge Mining Land Package
  • Maps & Section

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