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Mining News: Constantine hunts mammoth VMS MacVeigh and Green reunite to uncover a Greens Creek-style late-Triassic VMS deposit in the ‘elephant country’ of Southeast Alaska Shane Lasley Mining News
A decade after first kicking rocks around the Palmer Project, Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. President and CEO Garfield MacVeigh and Constantine’s new Vice President of Exploration Darwin Green have reunited to uncover what they hope will be a mammoth in a land of elephants.
According to Mac Veigh, Constantine was formed to explore the Palmer volcanic massive sulfide property when the company was incorporated in March 2006.
The Palmer Project, located about 35 miles northwest of Haines in Southeast Alaska, has good company. The polymetallic deposit lies in a belt of late-Triassic VMS deposits that hosts the precious-metal-rich Greens Creek Mine to the south and the Windy Craggy Deposit about 35 miles to the northwest.
In 1998, while MacVeigh was president of Rubicon Minerals Corp., that company issued a press release describing the Palmer Project as follows: “The project is located in ‘elephant country’ and hosts numerous high-grade base-metal showings within rocks that are the same age as the Greens Creek and Windy Craggy deposits.”
Green returns to Palmer Constantine announced the addition of Green to the junior’s management team at the end of October. The young executive became available after leaving the Niblack Project due to corporate reorganization resulting from the merger of Niblack Mining with Committee Bay Resources Ltd.
Green, the former vice president of exploration for Niblack Mining, is no stranger to volcanic massive sulfide projects in Southeast Alaska. In addition to his three years in charge of exploration at the polymetallic Niblack Project on Prince of Wales Island, Green has eyed the Palmer Project for a decade.
Green and MacVeigh first worked together at Palmer in 1998. MacVeigh was president of Rubicon and Green was a graduate student earning his master’s degree in economic geology from Carleton University in Ottawa.
Green received Carleton’s Senate Medal for his graduate work on the Palmer property. His master’s thesis, titled “Geology of Volcanogenic Massive Sulphide Prospects of the Palmer Property, Haines Area, Southeastern Alaska” was sponsored in part by Rubicon.
The Carleton grad returned to the Palmer property in 2004 with hopes of starting a public company to explore the subject of his thesis.
“The timing was premature, and a second attempt was made during more favorable market conditions in 2005/2006, which saw the formation of Constantine,” reflected Green.
At the 2008 Alaska Miners Association annual conference in Anchorage in November, Green won the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ “Commissioner’s Special Recognition Award for Project Excellence” for his contribution to Niblack Mining’s exploration of the Niblack VMS Project for the past three years. Green oversaw the completion of a major underground exploration program at Niblack.
“With the exciting new developments at Palmer, and after recently reaching several major personal and project milestones at Niblack, it was an opportune time to shift gears and take on the role of VP Exploration at Constantine to help advance the Palmer project,” Green said.
Three zones discovered at Southwall In 2008 Constantine focused its hunt on the Southwall target – located in the eight-kilometer-long, or five-mile-long, Glacier Creek corridor – discovered toward the end of the 2007 exploration season in Hole CMR 07-09.
Hole 9 cut 24 meters of massive sulfide with an average grade of 6.46 percent zinc, 0.45 percent lead, 1.19 percent copper, 49.8 g/t silver and 0.67 g/t gold.
The 12-hole, 4,395-meter program at Palmer this year discovered three zones of mineralization at Southwall. The 10 holes completed (two were abandoned) resulted in 17 mineralized intersections in these three distinct zones.
Excited about the Southwall discovery, the company’s first hole of the 2008 season – CMR08-11 – was a follow-up on Hole 9. Hole 11 intersected 71.6 meters of massive sulfide in all three mineralized zones.
Hole 11 intersected 36.3 meters of Zone 1 with an average grade of 1.54 percent copper, 0.45 percent lead, 5.45 percent zinc, 0.47 g/t gold and 28.5 g/t silver. This included an 8.9-meter intercept averaging 4.32 percent copper, 0.04 percent lead, 5.22 percent zinc, 0.84 g/t gold and 36.8 g/t silver.
Hole 11 intersected 20.4 meters of Zone 2 with an average grade of 1.53 percent copper, 0.37 percent lead, 7.62 percent zinc, 0.81 g/t gold and 100.7 g/t silver. This included a 2.5-meter intercept with an average grade of 1.98 percent copper, 0.40 percent lead, 7.00 percent zinc, 3.71 g/t gold and 371.7 g/t silver.
Hole 11 also intersected 12.6 meters of Zone 3 with an average grade of 0.47 percent copper, 0.15 percent lead, 6.27 percent zinc, 0.30 g/t silver and 24.3 g/t gold. This included a 3.2-meter intersection 0.39 copper, 0.18 percent lead, 11.91 percent zinc, 0.27 g/t gold and 33.9 g/t silver.
Green said exploration performed by Constantine has managed to demonstrate excellent continuity of thick intersections of massive sulfide at Southwall over a 300-meter-by-300-meter area.
The most recent assay returns reported from this season’s drilling are from CMR08-19. Hole 19 intersected Zone 2 about 30 meters to the west and 165 meters downdip from Hole 11. The average grade of the 38.5-meter intercept was 0.64 percent copper, 0.18 percent lead, 6.91 percent zinc, 0.21 g/t gold and 24.9 g/t silver; this included a 15.3-meter intercept with an average grade of 1.09 percent copper, 8.57 percent zinc, 0.09 percent lead, 0.25 g/t gold and 31.9 g/t silver.
Green told Mining News that although the drill density is relatively low, the company is considering preparing an inferred resource for Palmer once it receives the remaining assay results from the 2008 program.
Huge potential The geology of the Southwall Zone is complex due to folding and faulting in the area. According to Green, Zone 1 is related to the Main Zone lying immediately to the southeast of Southwall, while Zone 2 and Zone 3 are of the same age strata as the RW Zone to the northwest.
While Constantine’s immediate focus is on RW and Southwall, the company says the property has huge potential for expansion. The junior explorer has discovered eight prospects along the five-mile-long Glacier Creek mineralized corridor.
The property hosts another about six-kilometer-long, or 3.7-mile-long, mineralized trend about 2.5 kilometers, or 1.5 miles, southeast of the Glacier Creek Corridor. A six-foot high-grade boulder in the MHC-CAP Corridor contains 2 percent copper and 33 percent zinc.
Green said the company believes it is into a major massive sulfide system with some very significant size potential.
Three drills turning in ‘09 To reveal Palmer’s potential Constantine hopes to have three drills on the project in 2009. A specific exploration plan has not yet been decided for Palmer, but Green said drilling will be focused on expanding the resource at the Southwall Zone and taking a closer look at the RW Zone.
The company envisions a $5 million to $7 million exploration program in 2009. However, market conditions and Constantine’s ability to raise money will determine the size of next year’s drill program, Green said.
He observed that a project with the size and potential of Palmer would have no problem raising the funds needed during normal market conditions.
“We would like to see three drills turning on the property next year, focused on expanding the Southwall and RW Zones. We believe we are into a major massive sulfide system with some very significant size potential, and by the end of the 2009 season would like to be able to talk about a 5 million- to 10 million-metric-ton resource,” Green added.
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