Renforth Resources: Work resumes at Surimeau, with three new trenches planned for Lalonde target

2022.09.16

Renforth Resources (CSE:RFR, OTCQB:RFHRF, FSE:9RR) continues to advance its Surimeau battery metals play in Quebec, specifically the 9-kilometer-long Lalonde mineralized structure.

The company said this week it has received the required permit to resume surface work, following up on the visual mineralization encountered during channel sampling earlier in the summer.

In addition to the work commencing at Lalonde, Renforth will be chipping, stripping and channel sampling target areas on the ~20 km-long Victoria mineralized structure.

“We are very happy to get back into the field, in very dry conditions, to continue our surface work which has, to date, yielded excellent results,” Renforth’s President and CEO Nicole Brewster said in the Sept. 15 news release. “Lalonde is becoming quite interesting as we have the opportunity to do more work on it, this area will likely be drilled during our program anticipated for the latter half of this year. Our stripping contractor has done excellent revealing work for us to date, we are quite interested to see what he can uncover at Lalonde.”

So far in 2022, a total of eight trenches have been dug from the Lalonde and Victoria polymetallic systems. In each trench, some amount of mineralization was exposed, with the best mineralization, confirmed visually and with X-ray fluorescence, coming from Lalonde.

Channels were cut in each trench and samples sent for assay. Due to the success of this program, Renforth is now planning additional stripping to cross-cut the strike at Victoria, as well as a series of larger cross-cutting stripped trenches along the strike at Lalonde, to further define the extent of the mineralization. 

Surimeau Project

The Surimeau Project hosts several areas prospective for gold/silver and battery/ industrial metals (nickel, copper, zinc, cobalt and lithium). It is located south of the Cadillac Break, a major regional gold structure. The property occurs within a unique geological setting where two types of mineralization, formed from different geological processes, are “mashed together” in one distinct orebody. It is best described as a magmatic nickel sulfide deposit, juxtaposed with a copper-zinc volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposit.

The first type of deposit, which may contain nickel, cobalt and platinum group elements (PGEs), is associated with ultramafic rocks. The second type, VMS, was formed on or near the ocean floor during ancient underwater volcanic activity.

VMS deposits are sought after for mining because they usually contain a mix of base metals such as zinc, lead, copper, and sometimes precious metals including silver and gold. The minerals often form massive sulfide mounds or layers, making them relatively easy to extract.

2022 prospecting

2022 prospecting at Surimeau, located adjacent to the Canadian Malartic mine and the town of Malartic, extended the battery metals nickel, copper, cobalt and zinc to surface.

A field crew visited all the targets across the district-scale, 330-kilometer land package, took samples and submitted them to the assay lab. Results are pending.

After a brief hiatus, geological crews returned to the field in June for follow-up channel sampling, in areas of the best visual mineralization discovered during the May sampling program.

Lalonde

Renforth on May 31 announced that field work resulted in the discovery of surface battery metals sulfides at the Lalonde target.

Lalonde is located 3.7 km north of Victoria West, which was previously drilled by Renforth over 2.2 kilometers of strike length (see Victoria section below).

Renforth took 34 grab samples during prospecting in 2020 and 2021, with each demonstrating the presence of elevated copper, nickel and zinc. The best grab sample results include the highest nickel result: 0.2% Ni, 578 ppm Cu and 785 ppm Zn.

Trenches 1 through 5 were dug at Lalonde. Trench 5 represents a westerly extension of ~2km for the Lalonde mineralization. The first trench exposes about 5 meters of Pontiac sediments at the north end, with occasional narrow beds of graphitic mudstone, mineralized with traces of chalcopyrite (a copper mineral) and pyrite stringers.

The second trench exposes the same lithological (rock layers) sequence as the first trench, while the third trench shows ultramafic rocks, with up to 5-7% sulfide mineralization (pyrite-pyrrohotite).

Trench 4 is 12 meters long and exposes serpentized ultramafics at the south end, as does the 22-meter-long Trench 5.

A channel was also cut in the main Lalonde pit on the powerline. Renforth previously explored this pit in a 2020 prospecting campaign, which yielded up to 2.22% Zn and 0.15% Ni from grab samples.

For upcoming trenching at Lalonde, Renforth is permitted for three trenches perpendicular to the strike of the 9 km-long mineralized structure. According to the company, the trenching is planned to start and end in the Pontiac sediments, to encompass the full mineralized package at Lalonde. See the map below for the locations of the previous trenches (red stars), for which assays are still pending, and the proposed trenches, in yellow.

Victoria

Exploration at Surimeau has also focused on sulfide nickel-rich VMS targets, in particular the Victoria West prospect.

Information gleaned from drilling and trenching, along with surface sampling, creates an area of interest that includes over 5 kilometers of strike on the western end of a 20-kilometer magnetic anomaly.

The company interprets this anomaly to be a nickel-bearing ultramafic sequence unit, which occurs alongside, and is intermingled with, VMS-style copper-zinc mineralization.

So far, only 5,626 meters have been drilled over 2.2 km of the known strike length, yielding results that allude to the presence of a large polymetallic camp richly endowed with nickel, copper, cobalt and zinc, along with some PGEs (platinum group elements).

Assays came from seven holes (1,200m) drilled within the 275m strike length of the stripped area at Victoria West (see below), where channel sampling earlier revealed consistent nickel-cobalt mineralization.

One drill hole returned 3.46% Ni and 491 ppm Co over 1.5m between depths of 196.5m and 198m, demonstrating the high-grade nickel potential present at Victoria West.

The high-grade intercept was within a broader mineralized zone of 170.55m, which averaged 0.16% Ni and 100.2 ppm Co. A 12m-long zone, between 187.5m and 199.5m down hole, averaged 0.54% Ni and 138.7 ppm Co.

These results followed up on the promising assays reported last fall, where each of the 21 holes returned mineralization as expected, with the four deeper holes demonstrating an increase in grade.

Earlier this summer, Renforth discovered a second mineralized horizon at the Victoria target. This horizon sits to the north of the first horizon, uncovered during fall 2021 stripping at Victoria. A gap of about 40m separates the two horizons.

Trenches 6-8 were dug to expose the newly discovered northern band of mineralization. In the fall, 2021 Victoria stripping program, a strike length of 275m was stripped, exposing surface polymetallic mineralization between fences of holes drilled in spring 2021.

Subsequently, the exposed mineralization was undercut with drilling in December 2021. Prior to this program, the exploration at Victoria had been targeting the magnetic high. All the drilling and the stripped north cross-cuts missed intersecting the northern mineralized band, which was discovered during prospecting in spring 2022 by Renforth’s field crew. Additional stripping at Victoria will consist of a wide trench starting on the north and south sides of the stripped area. Little is known about what occurs between Victoria and Lalonde.

Renforth says it has hired a contractor to carry out a permitted chip sampling program in two locations within the 20-km Victoria mineralized structure, shown on the map below.

The first trench will run north from the central area of the previous 275m-long stripped/channeled area, to intersect the northern band of mineralization discovered in May 2022 field work. This mineralized band, not intersected in previous surface work nor drilling at Victoria, was discovered using data from the detailed magnetic/ electromagnetic (EM) survey and ground prospecting of EM targets, which led to the discovery of visual mineralization and confirmation grab samples. The second area of chipping is planned to also cross the entire mineralized package on surface, to allow for mapping and sampling at a second location.

Conclusion

Exploration results to date have reinforced Renforth’s view that Surimeau is richly endowed with battery metals like nickel that have been largely overlooked in the past. 

The Victoria mineralized structure is estimated at about 20 kilometers long, and the Lalonde structure now measures 9 km in length. The company continues to define the surface and sub-surface polymetallic mineralization, evidenced by outcrops, drill results and geophysics. However, a significant amount of ground remains untested, leaving heaps of upside for Renforth shareholders, in a project that is already showing district-size scale.

Renforth Resources
CSE:RFR, OTCQB:RFHRF, FSE:9RR
Cdn$0.03; 2022.09.15
Shares Outstanding 262.3m
Market cap Cdn$9.8­m
RFR website

Richard (Rick) Mills
aheadoftheherd.com
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