Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/1190748
50 www.resourceworld.com D E C E M B E R / J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 Gatling Exploration gets going at Larder Lake by Jennifer S. Getsinger, PhD, PGeo GATLING EXPLORATION INC. [GTR-TSXV] began trading November 5, 2019, on the OTCQX as GATGF. Gatling was spun out from Bonterra Resources Inc. a little more than a year ago and is focused on its the Larder Gold Project in the Kirkland Lake mining area of northeast Ontario's Abitibi Gold Belt. Located close to the TransCanada Highway in the historically prolific gold mining zone of the Cadillac – Larder Break between Agnico Eagle (Kirkland Lake, 24 Moz Au) and Kerr Addison (11 Moz Au), Gatling's Larder property assembly extends 10 km east- west along strike and includes the Bear, Cheminis, and Fernland deposits previously operated by Bear Lake Gold Ltd. and bought 100% by Bonterra in 2016. Noted on Gatling's website as a high-grade gold deposit, the Larder Gold Project consists of a combination of properties included in a 2011 technical report, which estimated historical amounts of Indicated Resources at the Cheminis deposit: 335,000 tonnes at 4.07 g/t gold containing 43,800 ounces gold and Inferred Resources (at the Cheminis): 1,391,000 tonnes at 5.2 g/t containing 233,400 ounces gold; and at the Bear deposit, Inferred Resources of 3,750,000 tonnes at 5.69 g/t gold containing 683,600 ounces gold. Total Inferred Resources of the two zones comes to 5,141,000 tonnes at 5.55 g/t gold containing 917,000 ounces gold, using a 2.5 g/t gold cut-off grade, and assuming a price of US $1,207/oz. These figures from 2011 have not yet been revised based on recent drilling results, and it is unknown when to expect the next technical report. Intermittent past production at Cheminis was 260,000 tons at recovered grade 0.104 oz/ton. Cheminis ore was hosted in min- eralized rocks with similar geological history to those of the Kerr Addison Mine. The exploration team of Nav Dhaliwal and Dale Ginn had been considered successful at Bonterra (which is now concentrating on part of the Abitibi Gold Belt in Québec) before an unfortunate (according to newsletter writer J. Taylor) merger with Metanor. It is expected the spin-off company, Gatling Exploration, will be more successful with their new endeavour. Gatling's Larder Project has previously been explored and drilled by several competent mining companies including Teck and Goldfields, suggesting promising gold mineralization all along the trend. Gatling has a large land package of 3,370 hect- ares, in some places surrounding or adjacent to other companies' claim blocks, which may be located on other known mineralized showings, as the area has a long history of gold mining. Whereas the mineralized rocks similar to those at Kerr Addison Mine are ultramafic and basaltic greenstones, the mineralized rocks at Gatling's additional claim area, the Kir Vit property, are related to syenitic intrusions and a conglomerate horizon (Timiskaming sediments). In Gatling's first year of operation, instead of proving up the known deposits along the Cadillac – Larder Break (Bear Lake, Cheminis, and Fernland), the company chose to spend its cur- rent exploration budget on seeing what Kir Vit (a few kilometres north of the others, on strike with Agnico Eagle's Upper Beaver Zone) had to offer. Drilling by Gatling in the 2019 field season on its Larder Project so far has totaled 20,000 metres with another 10,000 metres expected to be completed by year-end. Encouraging results include 20.7 g/t gold over 6.1 metres at Bear Lake. Results reported as high-grade gold have been recovered from Kir Vit in the range of 7 g/t gold, and previous work by Teck suggested mineralization extended to depth. The proxim- ity along strike of this area to Agnico Eagle's Upper Beaver deposit looks encouraging to Gatling. (According to J. Taylor, and quoted in Gatling's news release of July 30, 2019, from a technical report) Upper Beaver deposit "has an indicated mineral resource of 1,461,000 ounces gold at 6.62 g/t gold with 56,006,000 pounds of copper at 0.37% copper (6.87 million tonnes) and an Inferred Resource of 712,000 oz gold at 4.85 g/t gold with 32,218,000 pounds of copper at 0.32% copper (4.57 million tonnes)." Although Gatling claims there is porphyry-style mineralization at Kir Vit, there is no mention of copper mineralization in their work done so far on the Kir Vit property; however, nor in any accessible historical reports. Recent news from October 2019 reports that Gatling Exploration changed some of its team: Peter Dickie was appointed a director of the company and Peter Damouni was appointed Chairman of the Board, while Leigh Hughes resigned as a director. n A view of the Larder Gold Project. The headframe belongs to the past-producing Cheminis Mine. Photo courtesy Gatling Exploration Inc. MINING