Sarissa Resources Inc (SRSR)

[webpence]

Another look at Sarissa's Shining Tree

First, a brief history of mining in the Shining Tree district.

"Gold was discovered in the area in 1911. A large forest fire in 1919 laid bare much of the bedrock and was a blessing to prospectors who discovered more sediments in the area. In 1933 an article in the New York Times, referring to the White Rock mine at Violet Lake and mines at Three Ducks Lake and Beaver Lake, claimed that this was the biggest gold rush since the "49ers" of California and the Klondike rush of 1896.

The largest gold mine in the Shining Tree area, The Ronda Mine, near Michiwakenda Lake, was opened in 1939 with $6,000,000.00 invested in it, a huge sum for that period of time. By that time, with the discovery of gold and several lumber camps operating nearby, the population of the Shining Tree area swelled to over 900 residents. A large hotel and rooming house was constructed in 1930 on the lakeshore where Three Bears Camp is now located, and numerous log cabins could be found on the west arm of the lake.

In 1942, most of the mines were closed due to World War II. That same year, the hotel burned down. If one was to look carefully, the remains of some log cabins and mine shafts can still be found around the lake shores in the area."
http://www.shiningtree.com/history.html

I want to deviate from the main topic for a minute.


"Old Shaft Area"

Did Sarissa find one of the old mining shafts in one their claims? Has anyone asked Merle for an explanation of the meaning of that caption? Not sure what else it could mean, but it appears that Sarissa must have discovered evidence of an old mine shaft. I know this topic has been mentioned before, but I don't recall the answer.

I'll have to table that until I find more evidence. Back to the history of Shining Tree, the picture emerges of that of a promising area that received some attention, but where mines closed down due to WWII, if there is a question to why activity stopped.

Next, a map of the Shining Tree area of Ontario.



This is the map of the Shining Tree area of Ontario.

Below are a couple of youtubes of the staking rush by companies to stake claims in the Shining Tree region.

"The Shining Tree Camp has been the subject of much exploration activity. Pro Minerals' claim block, was at the centre of a staking rush in the late 1980's led by famed prospector Carl Forbes, which gained notoriety when a major Canadian news network filmed and aired a short documentary showing competing exploration companies who hired high-school, and college track athletes to stake on their behalf in an effort get the most prospective ground in the shortest amount of time possible. This claim block has been held privately since that time, and thus access to results from further exploration activities has been restricted. Pro believes the Shining Tree Project is a highly prospective property for gold occurrences. (less info)"

The first video references the Tyrrell Township and the rush that ensued after the government opened up land for staking, and this area includes some of the claims now held by Goldeye Resources. Here's what Goldeye says about the drill assays for Tyrrell:

"Goldeye Explorations Ltd. holds a large group, totaling 175 units, of well located claims in Tyrrell Township in the Shining Tree-Gowganda area, northeastern Ontario. The group includes of a significant gold resource, known as the Goldeye-LaCarte Zone, which straddles the boundary between the LaCarte and Associates claims to the west and the Goldeye group. The Goldeye-LaCarte Zone contains wide zones of gold mineralization, up to 2.09 g/t Au over 39.4m estimated true width, (including 4.28 g/t Au over 12.0m or 6.42g/t Au over 6.5m). This resource occurs within a zone of low grade gold mineralization which has dimensions of about 400m long by 400m deep and some 50 to 60m thick. The mineralization is hosted by an ESE trending, recently recognized major deformation zone, known as the Tyrrell Structural Zone (TSZ),"

Further down this same article from http://www.goldeye.ca/tyrrell/tyrtech.html

"There are a number of faults sets. The most prominent, a north-northwest set such as the Jess Lake fault in MacMurchy and the Hydro Creek fault in Tyrrell appear to be relatively late. A separate NW set (at a small angle to the NNW set) is represented by the Duncan Lake fault which shows significant down throw on the east side and marks the west edge the main Huronian basin. This may be part of the Timiskaming rift system. Less obvious 070o and EW trending faults are known to the west in the Ronda Mine area. There is, as well, an 020o to north-south set of fractures and faults which control a number of the known gold deposits and showings, such as the Tyranite main zone, the Ribble Vein at the Ronda, the Gosselin zone at Shining Tree and the Dome Byberg zones at the project area. The 115o trending Tyrrell Structural Zone identified on the LaCarte, Hydro Creek and Goldeye property had not been described prior to Haddington's work. This structure, at least on the Goldeye and LaCarte claims in Tyrrell, greatly disrupts the volcanics and to the east near Indian Lake it coincides with Timiskaming Type sediments. Although offset by younger structures, and hence made less conspicuous topographically, this structure may extend westward into the southern Swayze belt and eastward under the Cobalt cover rocks. It may, in fact, be a 'major break' similar to the Porcupine-Destor or Cadillac-Larder Breaks."

From SRSR's website:

"The Shining Tree property consists of 16 claim units in the townships of Asquith and Churchill in the Shining Tree district. On a regional scale the property is located within the prolific Abitibi greenstone belt which is renowned for its concentration of world-class gold and Cu-Zn-Ag-Au deposits. The Shining Tree property appears to be on trend with the Larder Lake - Cadillac Break with which many of the world-class gold deposits are spatially associated. The Shining Tree property is also centered on the axis of a regional gravity high signifying an area of thick supra-crustal rocks and under-plating by oceanic crust. In the Abitibi these associations appear conducive to the discovery of major gold deposits."

http://www.sarissaresources.com/pages/posts/sarissa-resources-inc.-shining-tree-property-results63.php?p=10

Also note that Tyrrell is two townships East of Sarissa's Churchill claims. I'm trying to demonstrate here that the gold values seen by Sarissa's 8+g/ton average of area three samples and their SC2 core readings and 53.9 g/t blast grab are all comparable or favorable when compared to other companies in the region and that the mineralized areas in the Shining Tree district are widespread. Other examples may follow.

More maps
Google Earth map of Speed Lake and Michiwakenda Lake

The link above is a map of Google Earth that shows Speed Lake in relation to where the Michiwakenda Lake is located.

In the second of those two videos is a feature of a prospector named Carl Forbes of Strike Minerals. Strike have 17 claims along the border of MacMurchy and Churchill townships just South of Michiwakenda Lake. Strike appear to hold the claims of the old Ronda mine mentioned in the Shining Tree history link above.

"RONDA PROPERTIES, 100% owned by Strike Minerals.

The property consists of twelve claims (17 units), which straddle the north-south boundary between Churchill and MacMurchy Townships near Shiningtree, Ontario.

Early exploration just after the turn of the 20th century discovered the Ribble vein. The vein structure may be traced over a general North-South strike length of 440 meters on surface. The grey/white quartz veining contains minor pyrite, trace chalcopyrite and values in gold and silver. Two shafts were sunk into the vein system, the first to 300 feet and the second to 675 feet. Production occurred from 1939 to 1940 on four of five levels. 24,592 tons of milled ore returned 2,727.15 ounces gold and 4,830 ounces silver for a recovered grade of 0.111 opt gold.

The property lay dormant until the mid 1990’s. A diamond drill program in 1996 tested the vein structure and mineralization. Numerous significant assays for gold were received during the 1996 program, but no follow-up work was ever completed. The potential of this property continues to rise with the increase in the price of gold."

Here's the drill data for their 1996 program.
"August 31, 1996
Zone 1 returned 3.05 m grading 1.56 g/t gold in altered sheared bedded mafic tuff, Zone 3 returned 8.17 g/t gold over 4.3 m. Zone 2 returned 0.75 m grading 3.81 g/t gold in quartz vein work."

http://www.infomine.com/index/properties/RONDA_MINE.html
Goldeneye
http://www.strikeminerals.com/other_properties.shtml

Again, another company in another part of the Shining Tree district that has decent gold showings, demonstrating the widespread potential of the entire district.

Reeling in back closer to where SRSR's claims are located, we see that Sarissa's claims in Asquith and Churchill are sandwiched between those of Platinex and Creso.

As I mentioned in a previous post, Trusler of Platinex says the next major gold discovery will be in the Shining Tree district.

So, again, we are now talking about Sarissa's immediate neighbors in the region, Platinex and Creso.

First, back to Platinex

“At this point in time we’ve got a small handle on the Herrick. There’ve been 63 holes drilled off, and we’ve had assays from all but five of those—15 of them were done historically. It’s well-defined down to about 125 metres, and along a 400 metre strike length. The values are a little bit low at this stage—lower than I would like to see. At surface we have some good high grade values over vein width. We find the deposit is thickening up as we go down.

“It is a persistent deposit—there’s always gold in the drill holes. This structure we think is 4.5 kms long so we have to examine the entire structure. We also have indications that there might be a parallel zone or zones, because we have been having fairly consistently gold in both the hanging wall and the footwall in parallel areas. And there’s indications from the IP work that we’ve done that there’s something hanging out about 100 metres out in the footwall. So there are going to be other targets. What we’re trying to do is not drill off resources at this time, but to find out where the heart of this deposit is and follow it through. It’s at an early stage of the project, but the potential is quite large.

“I’d add that we’re looking at four prospects on the property that we think have significant potential. Some of them have obvious high grade at surface. One of them we’re joint venturing with Creso Explorations Inc CXT:CA—that’s in the Gold Corona/Churchill area. Another is the Caswell Mine area where we have two shafts and 39 cross cutting veins, and two veins that persist through the length of that particular prospect. The other is the down dip portion of the old Ronda Mine which comes onto the property at about 300 metres depth. So we’ve got lots of targets and we’re gonna keep working on all of them right now.”

In the above quote, Platinex's CEO is referring mainly to their Gold Corona Joint Venture with Creso.


Platinex's Macmurchy claims

Individual channel samples returned numerous highly anomalous gold values including 10.55 g/t Au over/ 0.69m, 9.1 g/t over 1.0m, 4.69 g/t over 0.69m, 4.1 g/t over 0.44m, 4.41 g/t over 0.47m, 3.37 over 1.03m, 3.57 over 0.54m in channel samples and up to 27.7g/t Au in grab samples. In addition to these samples, 22 channel samples returned gold values greater than 0.7 g/t, three of which were greater than 2 g/t. Anomalous silver and tellurium values were evident throughout the area sampled, with assays up to 2.15 g /t Ag and 1.1 g/t. The gold enriched areas appear to be marginal to and probably beneath areas of anomalous silver-tellurium values, indicating the potential for Ag and Te to be important pathfinder elements.
"We are pleased to see the consistency of the results obtained from the systematic surface sampling by Platinex compared with what appeared to be selective historic sampling on the property," said James R. Trusler, President and CEO. "Moreover, the gold zoning with other metals over such a large area attests to the substantial size of the mineralized system. Although there is a lot of work to be done there are some very attractive drill targets including historic high grade intersections of up to 183.9 g/t Au over 1.5m, which we intend to commence drilling in February."


Back to the SRSR
In 2009 Sarissa undertook a 2-hole diamond-drilling program, the results of which are summarized as Hole SC-09-01 was collared within the intersection of the Speed Lake and Gosselin Rift Zones. A large quartz carbonate alteration zone was exposed during Sarissa's summer 2009 stripping program. This zone was intersected from 8 to 32 metres down hole. A second quartz carbonate zone was intersected further down the hole from 57.5 to 77 metres. 90 samples, totalling 91.54 metres of core, were sent for gold and silver assay from this hole. The best gold intersection obtained from this hole was 1.62 grams per tonne over 2 metres from a depth of 28 to 30 metres down hole. The best silver result obtained in SC-09-01 returned 63.7 grams of silver per tonne over 1.49 metres, from a depth of 129.89 to 131.38 metres down hole. SC-09-02 was collared within the Gosselin Rift Zone approximately 100 metres west of the Beaver Pond centre western shoreline, approximately 170 metres south of SC-09-01. This hole was drilled to confirm geological and assay information obtained in the Onitap and Tri-bridge holes drilled on this property in the 1980's. Alternating layers of intermediate to mafic altered volcanics with quartz veining, with varying amounts of finely disseminated pyrite and chalcopyrite mineralization were intersected to a down hole depth of 116.70 metres. 55 samples totalling 62.8 metres of core were sent for assay from SC-09-02. The best gold result returned 9.21 grams per tonne over a 2.06 metre interval, from a depth of 33.54 to 35 metres down hole. This section also returned 23.17 grams per tonne silver. A second interval returned gold values of 1.41 grams per tonne over a 4.85 metre interval, from 54.15 to 59 metres down hole. A third low-grade interval returned 0.45 grams gold over 11 metres, from 64 to 75 metres down hole. Additionally, 57.48 grams per tonne silver was obtained between 64 and 66 metres down hole. To date, drilling on the Property has not exceeded a vertical depth of 150 metres, consequently potential for gold and silver mineralization at depth is unknown. The current exploration program at the Shining Tree property will consist of ground and down-hole geophysics, and diamond drilling to test the depth potential for gold and silver mineralization."

Well, I've run out of time for now, it's 1am here.

A conclusion of sorts. I'd suggest that the spinout question that dmbao asked is if there is enough data available to suggest that Sarissa could spinout a separate gold company and raise enough for an exploration program in the process, with the end result being an NI report that hopefully would justify further exploratory efforts.

My claim is yes there is, and I would argue it on at least a couple fronts. We see that the mineralized areas are widespread across the entire Shining Tree district and that Sarissa's claims are comparable or favorable to those of their peers in the region. Additionally, these other companies note the significance of the specific region where SRSR's claims are located.

"which control a number of the known gold deposits and showings, such as... the Gosselin zone at Shining Tree

It may, in fact, be a 'major break' similar to the Porcupine-Destor or Cadillac-Larder Breaks."

"We also have indications that there might be a parallel zone or zones, because we have been having fairly consistently gold in both the hanging wall and the footwall in parallel areas."

"Drillhole SC-2 was drilled in the central area of the property to test for possible depth extensions of previously identified gold bearing horizons in historical drilling programs. SC-2 was drilled to a depth of 152 meters at an inclination of -45 degrees. This hole also encountered a series of foliated felsic to mafic volcanic units with varying amount of carbonate alteration and silicification. Fine pyrite and chalcopyritic mineralization was evident throughout these rock sequences; in some instances the mineralization was quite abundant ( > 5%). Significant values of both gold and silver mineralization in hole SC-2 are reported as follows:

Grams/Tonne Gold Grams/Tonne Intersection Depth
Silver Meters From (M) To (M)
9.26 24.56 2.06 33.94 36
15.93 3.32 36 39.32
1.17 3.19 42.44 45.53
32.3 1.09 44.44 45.53
61.51 0.85 55.15 56
54.48 2 64 66
1.4 4.85 54.15 59
0.45 11 64 75
56.32 3.68 89 92.68
True widths for the intervals reported above are not known at this time. Sarissa's management is extremely pleased with these initial results as indications are that gold and silver concentrations in the central Gosselin zone area may improve with depth. Further drilling to test for depth extensions is presently being planned. "

Another 15 minutes later.

I didn't have a chance to get into some of the historical data, but this is significant...

a possible piece of historical data, referencing both Forbes from the youtube video above and also Creso and the Churchill district.
http://www.creso.ca/download.php?src=tl_files/Docs_Reports/new+reports/Churchill/Churchill+report_by+Forbes_1982.pdf&token=ed8a08efb4679b86675919250688add0


Lastly, http://www.geologyontario.mndm.gov.on.ca/mndmfiles/afri/data/imaging/41P11SW0025//41P11SW0025.Pdf

Appears to me to be historical data, but I haven't confirmed 100% to be where SRSR's claims are located, but it's the same townships of Asquith and Churchill. But, it references Speed Lake and Gosselin rift zones, so I think this is a part of the historical piece of the data.