Matheson Area

The Matheson area assets include the past producing Buffonta property, Gold Pike, Bourkes, Guibord, Sims, and Plato properties all within a 9,269 hectare land package.

Map of Moneta's Golden Bear Projects

Buffonta Property

The Buffonta Property is located two km southwest of the Garrison Property in the Garrison, Thackeray and Harker Townships in northeastern Ontario. Buffonta is a past producing mine with historical gold resources and a high grade open pit with near term development opportunities and significant expansion potential down dip and within undeveloped zones.

The bedrock underlying the Buffonta mine group is comprised of weakly metamorphosed sub-aqueously deposited tholeiitic basalt and volumetrically minor intercalated interflow sediment of the Lower Blake River Group. Intrusive rocks include what is locally termed as the Garrison Stock, a 20 square kilometer monzonitic body located about 1 km northeast of the Kerr pit.

Gold tenors on the Buffonta mine group are known to occur in at least three distinct areas, termed as the Open Pit Zone, Number 5 Zone and Number 6 Zone. All three zones occur marginal to the Garrison Stock along locally northwest striking, south dipping Lower Blake River group meta-volcanic rocks subparallel to the inferred orientation of the Garrison Stock margin. Mineralization at the Kerr Pit Zone occurs in amphibolite grade meta-volcanic rocks which form part of the contact metamorphic aureole around the Garrison Stock. Gold occurs in quartz veins and vein breccias around which are prominent grey to brown colored pyritic alteration halos.

The past producing Buffonta Mine claim group was first staked in 1936 and has had extensive historic exploration work on the property. The property has an historical resource calculation* completed by M.V.W. White & Associates Ltd (Reference: White, M.V. 1997. Evaluation Report on the New Buffonta Property. Gwen Resources) in 1997 for Gwen Resources totaled the resources on the Buffonta Property as such:

Zone Tonnes (t) Grade (g/t Au) Ounces (oz)
6 Zone 73,207 5.77 13,583
5 Zone 140,988 4.82 21,860
Kerr Pit 193,520 4.84 30,134
TOTAL 407,715 5.00 65,577

*All assays are historic in nature and as such do not comply with NI 43-101 requirements and therefore, should not be relied upon. All results are reported from 3rd party reports referenced above. No QP has verified the numbers and therefore they should not be relied upon.

In March 2014, the Northern Gold filed an approved advanced exploration closure plan on the Buffonta Property to conduct reclamation of historical low grade waste piles of up to 100,000 tonnes with a view to custom milling the low grade waste.

Gold Pike Property

The Gold Pike property is favourably located, straddling the Destor-Porcupine Fault Zone (DPFZ) and located 5 km southeast of the producing Black Fox Mine, 2 km northeast of the Hislop Mine, and 4 km due north of the former producing Ross Mine.

The project hosts an historic exploration and production prospect that included a small open pit operation. In total the Gold Pike historic resource was based on 161 drill holes for a total of 28,992 metres of drilling. In 2013, an internal non-compliant NI 43-101 historic resource* was calculated in Micromine resulting in 5.3 Mt at 1.37 g/t Au for 234,000 oz Au at a 0.30 g/t Cut-off.

*All assays are historic in nature and as such do not comply with NI 43-101 requirements and therefore, should not be relied upon. All results are reported from 3rd party reports referenced above. No QP has verified the numbers and therefore they should not be relied upon.

Bourkes Mine Prospect

The Bourkes Mine Prospect area is underlain by mafic to intermediate Keewatin metavolcanics that are tholeiitic in nature and probably belong to the Kinojevis Group. The volcanics are tightly folded along a synclinal axis with a strike of N35°W and a vertical dip. The strike direction of the synclinal axis corresponds to the local strike of the mineralized quartz-carbonate veins and shear on the Bourkes Mine property and it is probable the regional folding acts as a control to local vein emplacement.

Gold was discovered in the vicinity of the mine in 1917 and a small shaft was sunk to a depth of 400 feet and 4 levels were developed during the period 1918-1920. In October 2006 a small stripping, mapping and sampling program was undertaken by Northern Gold Mining Inc. to verify the southern extension of the mineralized zone as suggested from old trenches up to 610 feet south of the shaft.

Plato Property

The Plato property is located approximately 37 km to the NNE of Kirkland Lake, Ontario and 42 km E of Matheson, Ontario in the eastern central portion of Garrison Township, and in the western central portion of the Harker Township.

The Plato property is situated within NE trending mafic metavolcanic flows of the Blake River Assemblage (Fe-Mg tholeiite, Basalt, locally pillowed) which are cut by narrow syenitic dikes related to the Garrison Stock intrusion. The property is situated immediately south (< 500 m) of the DPFZ and approximately 1 km southeast of the Garrison Deposit and 11 km west of the Holt Complex (Holt Mine, Holt Mill, Holloway Mine).

The Plato property contains the historical ‘Shunsby’ gold showing (4.7 g/t Au), which was tested by subsequent drilling confirming the vein system at depth with 1997 Barrick drillhole ST-97-12 (5.4 m @ 1.40 g/t Au incl. 0.9 m @5.60 g/t Au). The hole intersected narrow locally strong altered sections of basalt with 2-3% diss pyrite. Other holes from the campaign encountered NE-SW striking late carbonatized faults with only anomalous values in gold. In 1998, Barrick confirmed the down dip continuity of the Shunsby showing (coinciding with a NW-SE trending IP anomaly) with hole ST-98-28 (1.2 m @ 1.3 g/t Au incl. 5.5 m @ 4.4 g/t Au).

Guibord Property

The Guibord Property is located in Guibord Township, Ontario. There has been some historic work conducted on the property with exploration for gold, copper and by product molybdenite in a disseminated sulphide and veinlet. In 1986 Golden Shield Resources reported results from drill hole GS86-2, in which 11 of 24 core samples returned anomalous molybdenum values up to 1876 ppm Mo.

There are 3 main units present on the Property, metasediments of the Porcupine assemblage to the north and mafic to ultramafic metavolcanics of the Tisdale assemblage (Lower Unit) to the south. All the formations dip steeply, generally trend east-west and face south.

Sims Property

The Sims Property is located in Harker Township, Ontario, and is situated 3 km southeast of the Garrison Deposit and 6 km west of Kirkland Lake Gold’s Holt Complex (Holt Mine, Holt Mill, Holloway Mine).

The property is situated immediately south (< 500 meters) of the DPFZ and is underlain by NE trending mafic metavolcanic flows of the Lower Blake River Assemblage (Fe-Mg tholeiite, Basalt, locally pillowed) and the “Dale” Granite-Syenite Batholith, a large oblong pegmatitic syenite showing similarities to other nearby batholiths in Garrison and Michaud townships. Historic work on the property documents areas of extensive hydrothermal alteration with associated gold values, primarily at the contact between Syenite and Basalt, and NW trending shear zones.

Joint Venture Project

In addition to Moneta’s 100% interest in the gold projects listed above, Moneta has a 50% interest in a Joint Venture (“JV”) with Agnico Eagle Mines Limited, also strategically located on or along the Destor Porcupine Fault Zone corridor (“Destor”), one of the key mineralized structures in the Abitibi Greenstone belt in Ontario, with excellent infrastructure, including access roads, water, electricity, and mills.