Prospectors make dream strike, find gold
Peninsula groups credited with substantial precious metals find in Point May-lamaline
A gold and silver discovery in the Point May-lamaline area has the local prospectors who found it very excited.
So, too, are executives with Puddle Pond Resources, a Stephenville-based junior mining company, which has optioned the property it has since dubbed the Heritage Project.
The discovery is described as “a classic, epithermal style gold-silver system extensively mineralized on surface with bonanza grades up to 3.76 oz./tonne gold and 89 oz./tonne silver.”
Company vice-president of exploration Vic French said it is too early to tell if the find could lead to a mine, but there is good reason for optimism.
“At the stage that it’s at, and considering the grades that we’re getting on surface, and the size of what we’re seeing here, this has all the earmarks of being a mineral project that’s going to have some legs and will certainly see the need to spend some serious dollars.”
French said the best part was the happenstance of it all.
“It was very fortuitous. We just happened to bump into these people.”
“These people” were prospectors Bert Stone, Dan Kelly and Joe Walsh, who had been quietly working in the area for some time with positive assay results when they met up with Puddle Pond chairman and CEO Len Muise at a mining conference in St. John’s last year.
The trio was familiar with Muise through his longtime involvement in the mining industry, particularly as teacher of the provincial prospector-training course at the College of the North Atlantic’s Bay St. George Campus on the West Coast.
Over the course of last winter, the company kept in touch with the group, along with well-known St. Lawrence prospector Alex Turpin, who also had staked his own claims in the area, making his discovery in 2010, but also keeping it under wraps.
French explained negotiations to option the two properties began shortly after and reached the serious stage this spring, and an agreement was arrived at late last month.
“The two packages of ground cover an area about 12 by 15 kilometres. It’s centred immediately north and along the highway between Lamaline and Point May, and we have approximately 600 claims covering 38,000-39,000 acres.”
French said Puddle Pond is also negotiating agreements on three other properties that will expand the size of the Heritage Project, which is named after the Heritage Run moniker associated with the Burin Peninsula.
He said the discovery evolved as most do — with local prospectors who are familiar with their areas.
Staking claims
According to Walsh, he, Stone and Kelly became interested in the Point May-Lamaline region — an area that has had little to no record of previous exploration — last July.
“Through some contacts and government geology websites, we checked it all out and did some research, and decided to go into the area and do some sampling.”
Walsh explained the trio picked up a number of “floaters” — boulders or rocks — along a brook running from the highway about two kilometres inland to a pond and sent them in to be assayed, which came back with strong gold content.
He said Stone found the source in bedrock shortly afterward.
“We went a little further afield and we found more gold in the outlying area, and in doing so, we staked more claims. Between the three of us, it’s some of the best rock we’ve seen since we’ve been prospecting over a number of years.
“It’s easily accessible by heavy equipment. You got the road there by it, you got the power, you got the ponds there for water, etc., etc. All pluses.”
Signs evident
French said the quartz and rusty staining on rock that evokes gold are all evident in the area. Given the proximity of the outcrops to a major road that has been open for decades, he said he’s surprised the discovery is just now coming to light.
“The dream of every prospector is to go and find one prospect with good mineralization that ultimately might become a mine, but at least something that would probably warrant a lot of followup exploration and work over a period of maybe five or 10 years.”
French said Puddle Pond has a team of geologists and full-time prospectors based in Point May, and started a program about a month ago.
“They’re now doing the first pass following up on the work these prospectors did, their discoveries. So we’re going out now expanding the area of the search, and we’ve increased the size of the mineralized zone. As we see it right now, we’re pretty well doubled up on it.
“We will be doing this most of the summer — mapping, prospecting, taking rock samples and doing surface trenching.”
He said the company also plans to conduct geophysical, magnetic and electromagnetic surveying in the area.
“We have a summer program of proving up the prospects, of proving up the Heritage Project, of identifying targets throughout the project area … and then the objective of doing some drilling in the fall. We visualize a budget right now of around half a million dollars.”