With the signing of several recent option agreements, Rockcliff Copper Corporation has solidified its position as a major player and going concern in respect to the Flin Flon/Snow Lake Greenstone Belt.
As they did earlier in September, with the announcement of an option on Peter Dunlop’s Rex/Laguna property, they closed the month signing an agreement on Hudbay’s Bur Zone. A little over two weeks later, they struck again, signing an option on Dunlop’s Snow Lake Gold Property.
With these three properties added to their already vast holdings in the belt, Rockcliff has hundreds of claims and 450,000 hectares of property within their Snow Lake Project portfolio.
The Bur Zone, primarily a zinc deposit, is located 28 kilometres by road from the Town of Snow Lake. The property covers 86 mining claims, totalling 3,979 hectares. The Snow Lake Gold deposit is located adjacent to Hudbay’s recently purchased Snow Lake Mine property at the northern edge of the Town of Snow Lake. It covers 42 claims, totalling 5,304 hectares. The Rex/Laguna deposit is a gold deposit located on the east side of Wekusko Lake, some 20 kilometres southeast of Snow Lake. It covers 15 contiguous mining claims totalling 920 hectares. The company also owns or has a stake in the Tower, Talbot, Rail and Lon deposits.
Contacted by email and asked about the company’s short- and longer-term plans for the area, Rockcliff’s president and CEO Ken Lapierre stated, “We are strongly committed to achieve our singular goal of becoming mine finders in the Snow Lake mining camp.” He said Rockcliff’s Snow Lake Project began around 2005 and since that time the company has raised over $25 million, with the majority of these funds spent directly in the Snow Lake camp. “Our recent property acquisitions of the Bur, Laguna, and Snow Lake Gold properties further consolidates our portfolio of the very best assets in one camp, regardless of the color of the metal,” said Lapierre. “We are one company in one camp exploring three high grade metals: copper, gold, and zinc. I’ve always believed that it’s never a bad time in this business to acquire great properties with tremendous upside potential.”
Running through the large portfolio of area holdings, LaPierre says that his company is fortunate to have in their project the highest grade unmined gold-rich copper deposit at the Talbot property, the highest grade unmined zinc deposit at the Bur, and the highest grade former gold producer at Laguna. “Presently, we are drilling on the Talbot property with a 5,000m, 10-12 holes program,” he explained. “The drilling at Talbot will focus on expanding the present resource and then test proximal high priority geophysical targets. After that, the program will shift to the Rail property, located about 40 kilometres from Snow Lake.”
At the Rail Property, approximately 2,500 metres of the company’s drilling will focus immediately below the existing high grade copper deposit, where a large geophysical anomaly below has the potential to be copper-bearing and would significantly expand the deposit’s resource.
Once drilling is completed at Rail, Rockcliff plan to move the drill to the Laguna property, which includes the Bingo, Moosehorn/Ballast, and Kiski veins. “We feel the potential at the Laguna is to outline a minimum of 1.0M tonnes of high grade gold grading in the 20g/t [grams per tonne] range,” said LaPierre. “The former Laguna mine produced over 60,000 ounces of gold from one vein grading greater than 20g/t. Our initial surface work has uncovered many areas with visible gold and gold values from trace to over 20 ounces per tonne.” The CEO says findings at Laguna have been impressive thus far. They have identified narrow quartz veins associated within a larger quartz zone, which ranged up to 5.0 metres thick, with surface grab samples assaying over an ounce to the tonne gold, with significant silver and zinc values.
“We will complete a geophysical survey prior to a drill program at Laguna and hope to be very active on this property in the summer of 2017,” he said. “At the Bur property, we are earning up to a 100 per cent interest from Hudbay.” That property hosts a high-grade zinc-rich deposit on which Rockcliff is presently compiling historical data. Their plan at Bur is to grow the present historical resource through exploration programs that will include diamond drilling.
Prior to concluding the interview, Lapierre had several things that he wanted to state about Snow Lake. “Rockcliff is an exploration company and its field of operations has been in the Snow Lake area for over 10 years,” noted the CEO. “Most people in the community may not even realize that we live here, work, and hire here, and have spent millions of dollars in the area, slowly building our company with world-class exploration assets that have legitimate chances of developing into mines. It’s hard work and takes a great deal of money and time, but we want to be the next company to find a big mine in this camp! I believe, in some small way, Rockcliff is a vital part of the community. Remote communities like Snow Lake need to continue to be open to prospectors, explorers, and miners and we are thankful that the town is receptive to listening to our needs as we continue to move or company forward in this world-class camp.”
