Benzdorp Project
Benzdorp Gold Project – Suriname
Introduction:
Canarc’s Benzdorp property is located in southeastern Suriname, a South American country lying on Brazil’s northern border. The property covers 1,395 km2 of ground on the Guyana Shield and contains a large historic placer gold district (>1 million oz Au produced). It also is endowed with gold-bearing intrusive rocks and a large Proterozoic greenstone belt, a geologic unit that commonly hosts world-class high-grade gold deposits such as the Ashanti belt in West Africa. Evidence for both shear-hosted gold deposits similar to IAMGOLD's Gros Rosebel mine and saprolite-hosted gold deposits, like Kinross's Paracatu deposit, are present on the property.
Location and Access:
The project is located on the French Guianan border in southeastern Suriname, 300 km southeast of Paramaribo, the capital city. The property is accessible by charter aircraft to the nearby Tabiki airstrip or by boat up to the Marowijne and Lawa Rivers then by ATV on property roads. Benzdorp consists of four exploration concessions measuring 42 by 31 km spanning a total area of 1,395 km2.
Ownership
In 1996 Canarc entered into an option agreement with Grassalco, the state-owned mining company, to earn up to an 80% interest in the Benzdorp project. Gassalco has the right to convert its 20% net profit interest (NPI) into a 6% Net Smelter Royalty NSR).
Regional Geology:
Benzdorp is contained entirely within the Pre-Cambrian Guyana Shield of northern South America. Exploration interest in the Guyana Shield began in the 1990's as a result of Placer Dome's (now absorbed by Barrick Gold) Las Cristinas gold discovery in Venezuela, and Cambior’s (now acquired by IAMGOLD) Omai gold deposit in Guyana. The Guyana Shield is composed primarily of tonalitic gneisses and granites, meta-sediments and greenstones. The later two are favorable rock units that commonly host world-class high-grade gold deposits such as Red Lake.
Prospect Geology:
All of the currently known gold prospects occur in the eastern 20% of the property within a northeast-trending greenstone belt of meta-volcanic and sedimentary rocks. These rocks are intruded by a variety of diorite bodies and crosscut by northeast, north, and northwest-trending structures. All creeks on the property that drain the greenstone belt have produced or are still producing placer gold.
Canarc initially focused exploration on four gold prospects named after the large “Jungle Queen” dredge abandoned on the property in the 1950’s. These prospects include the JQA, JQB, JQS and JQW. The most advanced is the JQA zone where gold and copper mineralization occurs in porphyry stockworks within a quartz-diorite porphyritic stock measuring 750 by 250 metres. The remainder of the property has seen only cursory exploration, mainly grid soil sampling. These areas are prospective for shear-hosted gold deposits within greenstone rocks.
A promising target is the Pichevin and Rufin Creek area where artisanal mining has exposed a 30-metre wide gold bearing shear zone. This zone lies 2 km to the north of, and along the projected trend of Reunion Gold’s Antino zone where channel samples carry values up to 30 grams per tonne gold.
Current Status:
In 2006, Canarc revamped its exploration strategy at Benzdorp to explore for high-grade, shear-related gold mineralization to compliment the low grade, high tonnage porphyry-type gold mineralization at the JQA prospect. A CA $1 million program was completed, consisting of a high-resolution airborne geophysical survey and a large geochemical soil sampling program. This work was focused over the greenstones along the eastern part of the Benzdorp property.
Four prospective aeromagnetic anomalies remain untested. However, with the above-mentioned work now completed, Canarc can prioritize future trenching and drilling programs. Also notable is that many of the placer-mined creeks have their headwaters in this part of the belt and that IAMGOLD's high-grade Gros Rosebel gold mine in northeast Suriname is hosted in similar greenstone lithologies.
Canarc has also completed a high-resolution airborne magnetic and radiometric survey over the entire greenstone belt portion of the property in order to provide a higher degree of geological detail necessary for identifying the potential structures hosting gold mineralization.
Feb 14, 2007 - Canarc Sampling Returns 39.7 gpt and 9.3 gpt Gold Over 2 m Widths From New Vein Discovery On Benzdorp Project, Suriname
Recent Work:
Airborne magnetic and radiometric surveys (1,860 km of line, spaced 150 m apart) covering the greenstone portion of the property were completed in the Q2 2006. This data has proved useful in interpreting the geological domains and structures in the area that are assisting in refining targets for future ground-based exploration.
Also in 2006, 5,191 soil samples and several hundred rock samples were assayed for gold in a large geochemical grid sampling program (136 km of line, spaced between 200 and 400 m apart). The geochemical data were compared with aeromagnetic and geological maps to highlight prospective target areas. These areas were subsequently mapped and sampled by Canarc crews.
The work outlined above has defined an elongate zone, 7 km long containing six gold prospects within phyllitic sediments/tuffs and six mineralized felsic intrusions. The six phyllite-hosted prospects are mineralized shear-type quartz veins. Quartz-limonite-manganese veins and stockworks were found within all six felsic intrusion prospects.
Mining/Exploration History:
The first recorded gold production at Benzdorp was by English and Dutch companies in the late 1800’s, which exploited the vast placer deposits in the area. The total Past alluvial mine production is estimated to be over 1 million ounces of gold with the Jungle Queen dredge alone producing over 500,000 oz Au in 40 years. The Suriname government estimates that over 500 artisanal miners are active in the Benzdorp district producing an estimated 10,000 oz Au each year from the river gravels.
Since acquiring the Benzdorp in 1996, Canarc has spent over US $5 million on exploration including extensive soil sampling, trenching, geophysics, drilling, and deep bulldozer trenches. This work has successfully identified additional geochemical anomalies for trenching and follow-up drilling.
The most advanced prospect is the JQA discovery, which represents extensive low-grade gold mineralization in saprolite (soft clay like material). The JQA discovery area is still open for expansion in several directions. A resource calculation is currently underway.
James Moors, B.Sc., P.Geo, Vice President, Exploration, is the Qualified Person responsible for the project. The complete NI 43-101 report, titled “Summary Report on the Benzdorp Project Suriname” is available on SEDAR at www.sedar.com and was filed on March 28, 2008.
Deposit Potential
Evidence for both high-grade, shear-hosted gold deposits similar to IAMGOLD's Gros Rosebel deposit and large tonnage, saprolite gold deposits like Kinross's Paracatu deposit are present on the property. Both these deposits are within the Guyana Shield. Given that Benzdorp is endowed with both gold-bearing intrusive rocks and greenstone, a favorable geologic unit for hosting world-class high-grade gold deposits, Benzdorp remains an under-explored and very attractive gold exploration property.
Dislaimer
Cautionary Note to US Investors- The United States Securities and Exchange Commission limits disclosure for US reporting purposes to mineral deposits that a company can economically and legally extract or produce. We use certain terms on this web site, such as "reserves, " "resources," "geologic resources," "proven", "probable", "measured", "indicated," or "inferred," which may not be consistent with the reserve definitions established by the SEC. U.S investors are urged to consider closely the disclosure in our Form 20-F, File No. 000-18860. You can review and obtain copies of these filings from the SEC's website at www.sec.gov/edgar.shtml.
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