VANCOUVER, May 28, 2019 /CNW/ - Tres-Or Resources Ltd.
("Tres-Or" or the "Company") (TSXV: TRS, OTCPK:
TRSFF) is pleased to announce that an extensive re-examination
was recently conducted regarding the nature and extent of
historical work on the Company's 100% owned Guigues kimberlite pipe near Notre-Dame-du-Nord, Québec (the "Guigues
Pipe"). As detailed in this news release, a re-examination of
the historical work from the early 1990s has concluded that work
performed by a previous operator should be considered either
fatally flawed or be heavily-discounted. This work comprised a 2 to
3 tonne RC sample at a time in 1992 just after the first discovery
of diamonds in northern Canada,
when no consistent methods, procedures and protocols were widely
known for use in the rapidly developing diamond exploration
industry in Canada. The Company is
also providing a comprehensive summary of its proposed 2019 Guigues
Pipe exploration program.
The Company also reports that it is currently in confidential
discussions with an exploration company to option its gold project
near Amos, Québec (the "Fontana
Gold Project"). There are no assurances that these discussions
will result in a final agreement and updates on the discussions
will be reported as required. All dollar amounts are in Canadian
dollars.
- A re-examination of the Guigues Pipe has concluded that the
work completed in the early 1990s by a previous operator has been
reported incorrectly in numerous published sources including the
Northern Miner and government publications as detailed
below. No reports by the operator were made public.
- No industry-accepted methods were used for drilling or sampling
at the Guigues Pipe as consistent methods, procedures and protocols
did not yet exist in the rapidly developing diamond exploration
industry in Canada in 1992.
- No samples from this work were processed or analyzed at an
independent microdiamond testing facility.
- Accordingly, the results of the previous operator should be
considered either fatally flawed or be heavily-discounted.
- The next logical step is to properly assess the Guigues
Pipe.
- $440,000 proposed 2019
exploration program for the purpose of collecting core samples for
modern microdiamond testing of the Guigues Pipe, which has never
been done.
- Additional $239,000 proposed
exploration expenditures to develop two other high-priority
kimberlite pipe targets to collect core samples for microdiamond
testing.
- The Company is also in confidential discussions to option its
Fontana Gold Project; however, there are no assurances that these
discussions will result in a final agreement.
The Company has posted a new investor presentation regarding the
Guigues Pipe on its website's landing page (www.tres-or.com).
Why is the Work on the Guigues Pipe from the Early 1990s
Fatally Flawed?
The Guigues Pipe was discovered in 1983 by De Beers before their
discovery of the Victor kimberlite pipe near Attawapiskat in northern Ontario in 1987, and before DiaMet Minerals
Ltd.'s 1991 discovery of what is now the Ekati Diamond Mine in the
Northwest Territories; Canada's
first diamond mine. The discovery of economic diamond
concentrations in northern Canada
helped promote the previously under-recognized importance of
eclogite garnets with diamond inclusion compositions for diamond
exploration; an importance that has received industry-wide
recognition over the past decade.
De Beers' claims lapsed in 1989 on the Guigues Pipe and the area
was staked by another operator. At that point in time, the
appropriate methods for drilling, collecting samples, processing
samples, and analyzing samples for microdiamonds were generally
closely guarded industry secrets. This operator drilled three
reverse-circulation ("RC") drill holes into the northern
lobe of the Guigues Pipe. None of this historical test work has
been officially reported, and no assessment work reports were
filed. Based upon new information recently reported to the Company,
descriptions of the test work that have made it into the public
record are now confirmed to have been incorrect. For example, only
2 to 3 tonnes were collected from the three RC drill holes, rather
than the erroneously reported 23 tonnes as printed in the
Northern Miner on April 5,
1993, and later cited in Dr. Ron
Sage's seminal 1996 report for the Ontario Geological
Survey.
In addition, RC drilling is not the industry-accepted method to
collect samples for microdiamond testing and no microdiamond tests
were made. Independent modern microdiamond testing facilities were
not readily available in Canada at
the time.
Despite not yet having industry-accepted drilling, sampling, and
processing methods to apply, the fact that the Northern
Miner also reported the 1992 test did recover a colourless 2mm
x 1mm x 0.5mm macrodiamond from the Guigues Pipe, in the same
April 5, 1993 article, is
encouraging. If correct, the recovery of a macrodiamond would be a
positive indicator for the project as it would support the view
that the Guigues Pipe may be diamondiferous.
Furthermore, the RC drill holes were limited to the northern
lobe of the Guigues Pipe, which is less prospective relative to the
central and southern portions of the pipe as suggested by Dr.
Cookenboo's 2010 analysis, which is described in detail in the
section below titled, "Why are the Guigues Pipe and Surrounding
Targets Prospective?". For context, the Guigues Pipe covers an area
of approximately seven hectares based upon ground magnetics, which
is equivalent to the surface area of about 15 football fields.
Consistent with its prior disclosure, Tres-Or strongly believes
that historic work on the Guigues Pipe from the early 1990s is
fundamentally flawed and should therefore be either disregarded or
heavily discounted, and the Company continues to hold the opinion
that the Guigues Pipe is highly prospective for diamonds.
As a result, the Company intends to use industry-standard
drilling and sampling techniques to collect core samples from the
most prospective areas of the Guigues Pipe for the first
microdiamond testing at an independent and modern microdiamond
testing facility.
Proposed 2019 Guigues Project Exploration
Program
The Company plans to drill its 100% owned Guigues Pipe in 2019.
The primary purpose of the drill program is to collect core samples
for modern microdiamond testing, which has never been done on the
property before. The Company also plans to conduct targeted
exploration activities in the vicinity of the Guigues Pipe and also
expects to drill two of these suspected kimberlite pipes to collect
samples for microdiamond and indicator mineral testing.
Given the recovery of encouraging quantities of eclogite garnets
with diamond inclusion compositions, and the potential for
high-quality diamonds as suggested by production from the Victor
Mine within the same geological trend, Tres-Or strongly believes
the Guigues Pipe merits direct testing for microdiamonds at a
modern independent Canadian microdiamond laboratory. The budget for
this part of the 2019 Guigues Pipe exploration program is
approximately $440,000, including a
10% contingency. The Company anticipates that this drilling program
will commence near the end of the third quarter and that the
microdiamond testing results will be available near the end of the
year.
This summer, the Company also plans to commence a comprehensive
exploration program at its Guigues Project. The goal of this phase
of the exploration program is to quickly conduct a regional surface
till sampling program for indicator minerals over the high-priority
anomalies near the Guigues Pipe that were identified from the
Company's 2015 helicopter-borne Mag-EM survey. The results of this
work will be used to prioritize targets for follow-up sampling to
confirm the presence of kimberlite, and to provide core samples for
indicator mineral compositions by electron microprobe analysis. The
budget for this first phase of the 2019 exploration program is
approximately $63,000, including a
10% contingency.
Near the end of the third calendar quarter, the Company also
plans to drill 150-metre core drill holes into the two
high-priority exploration targets generated from the summer
exploration program described above, which will provide samples for
modern microdiamond testing. The budget for this second phase of
the 2019 exploration program is approximately $176,000, including a 10% contingency. The
Company plans to drill-test additional high-priority exploration
targets in 2020.
The total 2019 Guigues Project exploration program budget is
approximately $679,000, including a
10% contingency. It is expected that these expenditures will be
classified as eligible expenditures for Québec flow-through.
Please refer to the Company website (www.tres-or.com) for an
updated presentation on its Guigues Project.
Why are the Guigues Pipe and Surrounding Targets
Prospective?
The Guigues Pipe is part of Tres-Or's 100% owned Guigues Project
and is only subject to a 2% royalty. The Guigues Pipe is located
approximately 10 kilometres east of Notre-Dame-du-Nord, Québec. Notre-Dame-du-Nord is located where the
Ontario River feeds into the northern limits of Lake Timiskaming, a
large lake that straddles the provincial boundary between
Ontario and Québec.
The Guigues Project is in close proximity to infrastructure,
including paved roads, electrical power lines, a hydroelectric
power dam, and modern telecommunications. The infrastructure near
the Guigues Project site contrasts significantly with most other
diamond project sites in Canada,
which are principally remote fly-in/fly-out sites. As a result of
being in close proximity to infrastructure, exploration costs are
relatively lower and the investment economic hurdles for a
potential mine development in the Notre-Dame-du-Nord region is expected to be
substantially lower relative to fly-in/fly-out mines.
The Lake Timiskaming region has a long history of mining.
Exploration for diamonds in the vicinity began when the legendary
800-carat Nipissing Yellow Diamond was found during the development
of the silver mines in Cobalt,
Ontario, sometime between 1903 and 1905. The Nipissing
Yellow Diamond was cut into eight smaller diamonds, but the source
of this goose egg-sized diamond has not yet been determined.
The Guigues Pipe was discovered in 1983 by De Beers before their
1987 discovery of the Victor kimberlite pipe near Attawapiskat in northern Ontario (the "Victor Pipe"), and before
DiaMet Minerals Ltd.'s 1991 discovery of what is now the Ekati
Diamond Mine in the Northwest
Territories; Canada's first diamond mine. The discovery of
economic diamond concentrations in northern Canada helped promote the previously
under-recognized importance of eclogite garnets with diamond
inclusion compositions for diamond exploration; an importance that
has only received industry-wide recognition over the past
decade.
The Guigues claims lapsed on De
Beers in 1989, well before De Beers decided to reassess the Victor
Pipe in the late 1990s following the recognition of the importance
of eclogite garnets with diamond inclusion compositions. After more
intense testing, including assessment for eclogite garnets and
modern microdiamond testing, De Beers eventually developed the
Victor Pipe into Ontario's first
and only diamond mine.
In 2003, Tres-Or acquired the Guigues Pipe's encompassing claims
as part of a strategic 147-claim package transaction. Tres-Or
systematically explored its extensive land package, which it
believed was prospective for diamondiferous kimberlite pipes.
Within a few short years, Tres-Or discovered several kimberlite
pipes, including the massive 21-hectare Lapointe kimberlite pipe in
2005, which sparked a large staking rush in the area. The Lapointe
kimberlite pipe led to a flurry of exploration deals with several
partners exploring Tres-Or's land package under option agreements,
but the Company never optioned the Guigues Pipe as field work has
always pointed back to it.
In the wake of the 2008 Great Financial Crisis, the Company's
plans to properly test the Guigues Pipe with modern microdiamond
testing methods were put on hold as the interests of
exploration-orientated investors shifted to gold projects at that
time. As a result, Tres-Or added gold exploration properties in the
Abitibi region of Québec to its portfolio but continued to slowly
advance the Guigues Pipe when it was afforded the opportunity.
In late 2009, Tres-Or and Dr. Harrison
Cookenboo, a globally-recognized diamond exploration expert
and a Senior Associate Geologist at Watts, Griffis and McOuat Ltd.
("WGM"), collected small samples from five locations near
the top of the Guigues Pipe for kimberlite indicator mineral
analyses. Dr. Cookenboo and Tres-Or completed electron microprobe
analyses at the University of British
Columbia ("UBC") that characterized and quantified
the presence of kimberlite and diamond indicator minerals.
Dr. Cookenboo's work identified the presence of diamond
inclusion composition eclogite garnets, chromite and chrome
diopside, as well as other important kimberlite indicator minerals
such as chromium-pyrope ("Cr-pyrope"), forsteritic olivine, and
magnesium-ilmenite ("Mg-ilmenite"). The eclogite garnets with
diamond inclusion compositions are of especially high priority and
point to important diamond potential in kimberlite pipes; an
importance that has received industry-wide recognition over the
past decade (Duffett and Cookenboo, 2010; Assessment Report on the
RC Drill Program for Recovery and Analysis of Kimberlite Indicator
Minerals, Guigues Kimberlite Pipe, for Tres-Or Resources Ltd.;
filed with, and available from, the Québec government).
Further, the recovery of eclogite garnets with diamond inclusion
compositions from the Guigues Pipe highlights the potential for
high-quality diamonds. It is especially encouraging as it points to
potential similarities to eclogite and lherzolite garnets from De
Beer's Victor diamond mine and Metalex's U2 pipe (60 km west of
Victor), both located within the same Superior Craton and along the
same Mid-Continent Rift, as detailed recently in Stachel et
al., 2017 ("The Victor Diamond Mine"; 11th IKC
Extended Abstracts; and Metalex Ventures Ltd. news release dated
April 1, 2009 as available on
www.sedar.com.)
In early 2015, the results of Dr. Cookenboo's and UBC's analyses
on the Guigues Pipe were re-analyzed by Dr. Charles Fipke's C.F. Minerals Research Ltd.
("CFM") laboratory. CFM provided the Company with a diamond
indicator classification that affirmed the presence of highly
encouraging quantities and classifications of numerous eclogite
garnets with diamond inclusion ("DI"), probable DI
compositions, and possible DI compositions, as well as other
important diamond indicator minerals. A summary of the CFM diamond
indicator classification results is presented in the following
table:
CFM Laboratory
Classification (1)
Diamond Associated
Compositions
|
EG: 7 DI + 12 prob. DI
+ 18 possible DI PY
G-11: 5 DI OLV: 23 of 74 DI or
DI overlap CHR: 1 DI
(1) DI = Diamond
Inclusions
|
Historical results discussed above regarding Tres-Or's sampling
and subsequent microprobe indicator mineral analysis on the Guigues
Kimberlite in 2009 were verified by the use of appropriate
standards and procedures at the independent laboratory Overburden
Drilling Management ("ODM") and UBC, under the supervision
of H. Cookenboo, Qualified Person as defined in NI43-101, who also
approved this news release. Interpretations of diamond
prospectivity were further verified by re-classification of the
microprobe data at CFM, and by comparison to published data
regarding the Victor Diamond Mine and U2 kimberlite pipe, as
described in the text.
Verification that the results of the 2 to 3 tonne test at
Guigues in 1992 were erroneously
reported in the Northern Miner and elsewhere is based upon
recent conversations by Tres-Or (including L. Duffett, President
and P.Geo, who approved this news release) with a participant in
the work during 1992 and the lack of apparent residue at the site
that would be consistent with a 23-tonne sample being extracted.
Tres-Or cannot verify this information more confidently, given the
limits imposed by length of time passed, except by completing work
as in the recommended 2019 drilling and microdiamond testing
program.
Fontana Gold Project Update
With respect to Tres-Or's gold projects, which encompass about
200 contiguous claims on the Québec side of the Abitibi Greenstone
Belt (the "Fontana Gold Project"), the Company believes that
it has sufficiently advanced these properties to attract a strong
option partner with the necessary technical skills to develop them
further.
Tres-Or is currently in confidential discussions with a
technically-strong private exploration company to option the
Fontana Gold Project. Although Tres-Or is optimistic, there are no
assurances that these discussions will result in an option
agreement. The Company will provide an update on the discussions as
required.
About Tres-Or Resources Ltd.
Tres-Or Resources Ltd. is a Canadian resource company focused on
exploring for diamonds and gold resources in the Témiscamingue and
Abitibi regions of Québec that is listed on the TSX Venture
Exchange under the trading symbol "TRS". Additional information
related to the Company is available on SEDAR and on the Company's
website (www.tres-or.com).
On behalf of the Board of Directors
"Laura Lee Duffett"
Laura Lee Duffett, P.Geo.
President and CEO
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Service
Provider (as the term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture
Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of
this news release.
Qualified Persons
Disclosure of a scientific or
technical nature related to the Company's projects and exploration
activities in this news release was prepared under the supervision
of Dr. Harrison O. Cookenboo, B.Sc.,
M.Sc., Ph.D., P.Geo., the Company's independent Qualified Person
(as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101), and
Ms. Laura Lee Duffett, P.Geo., the
Company's President and CEO, who is a non-independent Qualified
Person, both of whom have reviewed and approved the technical and
scientific portions of this presentation. Portions of the
information are based on assumptions, qualifications, and
procedures that may not be fully described herein and for which
there may be no supporting technical report prepared in accordance
with National Instrument 43-101.
Forward-Looking Statements
This news release contains
projections and forward-looking information that involve various
risks and uncertainties, including, without limitation, statements
regarding the potential extent of mineralization, resources,
reserves, exploration results and plans and objectives of the
Company. These risks and uncertainties include, but are not
restricted to, the early stage development of the Company and its
projects; general business, economic, competitive, political and
social uncertainties; capital market conditions and market prices
for securities, junior market securities and mining exploration
company securities; commodity prices, the amount of geological data
available, the uncertain reliability of drilling results and
geophysical and geological data and the interpretation thereof and
the need for adequate financing for future exploration and
development efforts. There can be no assurance that such statements
will prove to be accurate. Actual results and future events could
differ materially from those anticipated in such statements. These
and all subsequent written and oral forward-looking statements are
based on the estimates and opinions of management on the dates they
are made and are expressly qualified in their entirety by this
notice. The Company assumes no obligation to update forward-looking
statements should circumstances or management's estimates or
opinions change.
SOURCE Tres-Or Resources Ltd.