Application of Large-scale Synchrotron X-Ray Fluorescence 2D Mapping of Alteration Styles to Understand Gold Mineralization at the Monument Bay Project, Stull Lake Greenstone Belt, Manitoba, Canada

Abstract

The Monument Bay project is an Archean Greenstone-hosted gold deposit located ~570 km NW of Winnipeg, MB. The project is located within the Stull Lake Greenstone Belt, situated in the NW part of the Superior Province. Significant gold grades revealed in previous studies suggest that there is strong potential for the exploitation of gold reserves at the deposit [1]. The project area comprises three main rock groups (metavolcanic, felsic intrusive, and metasedimentary rocks) and six different prospecting target zones: Twin Lakes, Twin Lakes West, AZ, South Limb Shear, Mideast, and the Fence. Each target encompasses at least three different styles of hydrothermal alteration including carbonate, sericite, and chlorite alteration. The objective of this project is to delineate the mineralogical and geochemical footprint of the deposit by identifying and characterizing these alteration styles and their relationship to gold mineralization. It is important to understand the relationships between the targets to effectively vector towards future discoveries in underexplored regions of the property. Additionally, in developing a comprehensive understanding of the broad alteration footprint, the subsequent detection of gold mineralized zones can be applied on a district-wide scale. Chemical and mineralogical characteristics of the alteration footprint may help determine the proximity to high-grade Au mineralized zones. A combination of optical petrography, synchrotron radiation X-ray fluorescence (SR-XRF), and synchrotron radiation X-ray diffraction (SR-XRD) is being used to characterize in detail the chemical and mineralogical alteration footprint of the Monument Bay deposit.

Multiple-Scale Synchrotron and Lab Source X-Ray Fluorescence 2D Mapping of Gold Mineralization Styles at the Troilus Gold Project, Frotêt-Evans Greenstone Belt, Quebec, Canada

“…The large-scale SR-XRF mapping of drill core allows the correlation of elemental relationships of gold mineralization with mineralogical and textural features [3] and has been used to understand alteration styles in proximity to high-grade gold mineralization in other studies. [4,5] Higher resolution mapping of the thin section further refines the spatial relationships, Figure 2. At higher resolution, the gold association with the silica and carbonate alteration is more pronounced than that with Cu.…”