I attended the Manitoba Mining & Minerals Convention this morning. It had already run on Thrusday and Friday, but this morning was the show was opened to the public with no admission charge. This was a good plan as it brought many people out, and there were visitors chatting at pretty well every booth. There were booths from a lot of support companies (e.g. helicopter services, instrumentation, fire protection) as well as explorers, production miners, and even some land holders looking to connect with an interested party. Wildcat was on hand, of course, with a number of personnel on hand: John Knowles (CEO), Tom Lewis (VP - Exploration), Wayne Stebbe (Corp. Development), and geologists Ryus St. Pierre, Julia Singh and Peter Theyer.
Wildcat had a 20 minute presentation slot at 9:00 am which was attended by some 35-40 people. John Knowles gave a brief introduction of the company and of Tom Lewis, and then Tom gave an overview of the properties, using a Powerpoint presentation to display maps and key points. It was a general overview, so I did not gather any new significant information from the presentation, but it provided good information to people not as familiar with the company as I am. A few of the points that were made:
- in looking at the geology of the Rice Lake Greenstone Belt, there is an intrusion that runs through the area west of Bissett, passing south of the Jeep property and curving down toward Gem Lake. The north and south edges of this intrusion run mostly parallel, but they spread farther apart as they pass the Jeep property -- it is like there is a bulge or swelled area at that point. In thinking about that, it seems there may have been extra pressure there at some point, forcing the adjoining rocks apart; that extra pressure may have contributed to extra fracturing of the rocks on the Jeep property, making it receptive to liquid rock penetration and favourable for gold deposits.
- if one looks at the hinge zone map that San Gold has put out, you can see the parallel hinges (folds actually) that occur repeatedly along the "Golden Fairway". The extends right over to Wildcat's Mike Power property where it ends. It seems there was a WNW thrusting of rock in that direction which created the folding - and folds are great places for gold to deposit. As such, the folds in the Horseshoe Lake area on Wildcat property are of high interest. There seem to be a succession of similar folds on the Jeep property.
- Safety and Community Relations are something that Wildcat always keeps in mind; there is a duty to consult with the aboriginal people when you come exploring in their neighborhood, and good management will have genuine concern for the environment and will also try to provide opportunities for employment to local people.
- Plans are to drill on the Jeep property this winter. Exact drill targets are still being determined - there is a lot of data to sort through still to identify best targets. Drilling will start with shallow holes to prove the width of veins that have discovered. Future drilling targets will follow out of the results of the shallow drilling.
I did have some conversations at the booth after the presentation which I will post about separately.
