 | |
Overview
FNI's target is a five million tonne deposit containing 150 million pounds of nickel.
The Morgan-Lumsden property is located 12 km east of the Falconbridge's Strathcona Mill Complex and 1.5 km west of the Bowell Deposit. Little exploration has been conducted on the property to-date and roughly 2 km of unexplored SIC contact is present on the property between 500 and 1500 metres depth.
First Nickel will have the right to earn a 50% interest in the Morgan-Lumsden property by committing to exploration funding of $1 million in 2005, with option to spend an additional $2 million over four years. The Company will vest its 50% interest by completing a bankable feasibility study on a deposit of not less than 50,000,000 pounds of nickel equivalent and payment of $2 million to Xstrata Nickel (formerly Falconbridge Limited). Xstrata will be the operator of the Morgan-Lumsden property.
Property
The Morgan-Lumsden property comprises two blocks located on the North Range of the Sudbury Igneous Complex in Morgan, Lumsden and Bowell Townships.
The property covers approximately 249 hectares.
Previous Work
There is a limited exploration history on the Morgan-Lumsden Property. Xstrata Nickel (formerly Falconbridge Limited) completed a total of 1,605 metres of diamond drilling in 3 holes in 1976 and a surface audio magneto-telluric (AMT) geophysical survey was completed over the entire property in 1988.
Geology
The Morgan-Lumsden property is located on the North Range of the Sudbury Igneous Complex where the geology is comprised of a combination of footwall rocks of felsic gneiss, mafic gneiss, Matachewan Diabase, olivine diabase and abundant Sudbury breccia dykes and the typical SIC stratigraphic package of granophyre , transition zone , and felsic to mafic norite in this area overlies sublayer norite and highly variable thicknesses of late granite breccia. The contact is cut by regionally extensive northwest trending faults that offset the contact in a left lateral sense.
Recent exploration drilling completed by Xstrata Nickel has identified a potential embayment feature that is coincident with an AMT anomaly on the south-central portion of the property. The potential embayment feature has been interpreted based upon a thickening sublayer norite and late granite breccia package, a steepening of the basal contact of the SIC and the presence of increasing concentrations of Ni-Cu sulphide mineralization towards the interpreted centre of the embayment feature.
Xstrata Nickel, as operator, has reported a total of 9 diamond drill holes representing 8,688 metres completed to May 4, 2006. The drill program has been designed to test the SIC contact at a depth between the depths of 800 to 1,500 metres, provide geophysical platforms to evaluate the exploration potential of the SIC and follow-up on nickel sulphide mineralization and borehole geophysical anomalies identified by diamond drilling in 2006 and 2007. All of the diamond drill holes have been surveyed using the Borehole UTEM system and Gyro Survey. Only one RIM (Radio Imaging Method) panel between holes M-057 and M-054 on the southeastern portion of the property has been completed to date.
Borehole UTEM completed on drill hole M-059 identified a broad geophysical anomaly from 1,075 metres to 1,200 metres depth. Based on the geophysical interpretation completed by Xstrata, the conductors appear to have been intersected on the up-dip portion of the source area. In addition, the upper portion of the conductive region appears to strike more east-west than the lower horizon indicating the potential of more than one source of the observed anomalies. The influence of the near field conductors has limited the detectability of far field features that may exist further along the conductive trend.
Hole M-066 has been drilled to a depth of 1,526 metres and is an 85 metre step-out to the southwest of M-059 (0.71% Ni over 38.8m). The hole represents the next consecutive hole drilled on the property and returned a 5.2 metre intersection of massive and semi-massive sulphides grading 2.03% nickel, 0.26% Cu and 0.09% Co, including a 3.15 metres section that graded 2.50% Ni, 0.25% Cu and 0.10% Co was intersected in the hole. The sulphides have been interpreted by Xstrata as hosted in a broad zone of Sudbury Breccia approximately 50 metres below the Sudbury Igneous Complex (SIC) contact.
Analytical results have been summarized in the following table. The nickel tenors of the Morgan-Lumsden nickel sulphides appear to range between 3.2% and 3.8% nickel in 100% sulphide.
| Hole ID |
From
(m) |
To
(m) |
Drill Length
(m) |
Ni
(%) |
Cu
(%) |
Co
(%) |
| M-055* |
789.45 |
789.80 |
0.35 |
1.72 |
0.12 |
0.05 |
| M-055* |
813.30 |
813.55 |
0.25 |
2.14 |
0.10 |
0.08 |
| M-058 |
932.80 |
933.10 |
0.30 |
1.15 |
0.08 |
0.10 |
| M-058 |
935.00 |
935.45 |
0.45 |
0.99 |
0.03 |
0.04 |
| M-058A |
949.25 |
949.60 |
0.35 |
3.68 |
0.07 |
0.12 |
| M-058A |
988.30 |
992.00 |
3.70 |
1.04 |
0.06 |
0.10 |
| M-058A |
1064.15 |
1065.20 |
1.05 |
1.52 |
0.46 |
0.04 |
| M-059 |
1110.00 |
1148.80 |
38.80 |
0.71 |
0.17 |
0.04 |
| incl. |
1120.10 |
1125.70 |
5.60 |
1.03 |
0.22 |
0.05 |
| incl. |
1138.55 |
1141.40 |
2.85 |
1.45 |
0.17 |
0.08 |
| M-066 |
1112.55 |
1113.50 |
0.95 |
1.94 |
0.15 |
0.09 |
| And |
1117.00 |
1117.50 |
0.50 |
1.84 |
0.31 |
0.04 |
| And |
1120.65 |
1125.85 |
5.20 |
2.03 |
0.26 |
0.09 |
| incl. |
1120.65 |
1123.80 |
3.15 |
2.50 |
0.25 |
0.10 |
| All assay intervals reported are core length and do not represent true widths (definedas being measured at right angles to the direction of extension of the sulphide body). All other assay samples are pending analysis. |
Exploration work continues to confirm the interpretation of a developing new embayment feature along the basal contact of the SIC. This coupled with the presence of nickel-copper sulphide mineralization and the borehole geophysical results indicate the potential for a new, significant sulphide system developing on the Morgan-Lumsden property.
Geologic features indicate further opportunity for Footwall mineralization on the property. These features include a significant proportion of Sudbury Breccia intersected in the footwall, below the massive sulphide intercept, with local and scattered disseminated, blebby and fracture controlled chalcopyrite mineralization.
Recommended work programs are proposed by Xstrata and approved at a Management Committee Meeting with representatives of both companies. A Management Committee Meeting was held in January 2007 to approve the 2007 exploration program for the Morgan-Lumsden Property.
A budget of $1.2 million has been estimated for the 2007 exploration program. The program consists of approximately 6,000 metres of diamond drilling with follow-up borehole geophysics and Radio Imaging Surveys. A 10% administration fee is included in the exploration budget.
| | 
Morgan-Lumsden
| |
