Background

The Standard Gold Project is centered on the former Standard Gold mine, also known as the Goldvue mine, and the project was originally named Duverny after the township where the claims are located. The property now encompasses 75 claims or 3,304 hectares and is located 15 km northeast of the town of Amos in the Abitibi region.

The project was acquired in January of 2011 from Big Bang Resources, a company made up of local prospectors, and was optioned to Osisko Mining Corporation the following month. Under the terms of the option agreement, Osisko may earn up to a 70% interest in the project (see press release of Feb. 14, 2011).

The deposit was originally discovered in 1936 but only went into production after World War II. Although production figures are not available, details were documented for the underground development and operations from 1946 until 1953, at which time production ceased. The project was left dormant for almost 30 years due in part to the low gold price, which stagnated at $35 during this period. Sporadic exploration work was carried out  in the 1980s and 1990s, focusing strictly on the former mine area and known veins to assess their mining potential in the face of fluctuating gold prices.

Big Bang Resources recognized the potential of the entire project and not simply the former mine site, by considering modern mining approaches and the trend of targeting larger volumes of lower grade rocks amenable to bulk mining.

Geology

The area is underlain by volcanic rocks that form part of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt. According to Labbé (1995; MRNF MB-95-24), the rocks of the area are calc-alkaline andesites belonging to the Arthur Lake Formation of the Dalquier Group. More relevant to the Standard Gold property is the presence of synvolcanic intrusive dykes and sills of intermediate to mafic composition that host a significant portion of the area’s known gold.

The Standard Gold property is centered on one such dyke with an interpreted NW-SE trend and a crosscutting relationship with surrounding volcanic rocks based on its geophysical signature. The dyke displays extensive quartz-filled oblique and shear-parallel fractures caused by brittle deformation. Although the presence of gold in these quartz veins has been well established by earlier exploration work, the mineral potential of the alteration envelope affecting the entire intrusive rock package remains to be tested.

Initial exploration will be conducted on the project in 2011 following an exhaustive compilation of earlier exploration work.

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