RED LAKE

GEOLOGY

The Red Lake Gold Mines property is underlain mainly by tholeiitic basalt and locally by komatiitic basalt of the Balmer assemblage.  The mine sequence is completed by peridotitc komatiite, rhyolite and associated mafic intrusions of the Balmer assemblage.  The steeply plunging south-southwest folded package is overlain by felsic volcaniclastics, clastic and chemical sedimentary rocks of the Bruce Channel assemblage defining an enveloping syncline anticline couplet based on younging directions, with the synform hinge located on the north side of the Campbell Complex, east of the HG Young shaft underneath Balmer Lake and the anticlinal hinge in the south central portion of the former partywall boundary and east at the Red Lake Complex.  The prominent fabric at teh site is the S2 cleavage, trending northwest-southeast, axial planar of the F2 folding, plunging steeply to the south-southwest. 

The major mineralized zones are associated with a central ultramafic unit, which is a highly carbonatized and altered unit, believed to be either volcanic or plutonic in origin.

Hydrothermal alteration at the Red Lake mine properties can be subdivided into three main phases: (1) and early alteration subdivided into (a) carbonatization and pervasive biotite (potassic) alteration and (b) early silicification and aluminosilicate-bearing alteration; (2) main-stage vein phase of barren dolomite to ankerite, cockade breccias and sheeted veinlet zones with chloritic alteration; and (3) a mineralization phase with quartz-sericite +/- cordierite alteration and a late episode of veinlet controlled biotite +/- tourmaline alteration.

The Red Lake Gold Mines mineralized system is a wedge-shaped zone above roughly the 27 level which widens upwards and is constrained by bounding fault structures on the northeast and southwest flanks. This wedge is defined by steeply south-dipping and South-southwestern plunging litho-structural packages of ultramafic and rhyolitic bodies, enveloped mainly by metabasalts.