Issue link: http://resourceworld.uberflip.com/i/712968
22 www.resourceworld.com a u g u s t / s e p t e m b e r 2 0 1 6 i n s i g h t s & i n v e s t m e n t s B a r r y M u i r M ining on the island of Newfoundland has always played an important part in the province's economy, from small scale mining efforts as far back as the 1770s, to one of the world's leading copper exporters in the 1860s and notably, to the Bell Island Iron Ore Mine, the longest con- tinually operating mine in Canada that shut down in 1966. The old saying, "every day a mine is worked is a day closer to shut down" holds true for Newfoundland's diverse min- ing projects where over the years, more than 15 mineral commodities have been produced or mined from several different projects that have come and gone. Today, Newfoundland is a globally- significant producer of iron ore, nickel, copper, cobalt and gold from five large scale mines and is ranked the eighth best jurisdiction in the world to invest in exploration and mining projects by the Fraser Institute. Other mines and quarries on the island produce a variety of metals and mineral products including limestone, dolomite, granite and slate. Mining and exploration companies directly provide high-paying jobs to more than 7,000 men and woman throughout the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Newfoundland also hosts a vigorous mineral exploration sector, where the government has recently made many stra- tegic investments to enable and encourage exploration. One company which has ben- efitted from that government investment is Toronto-based Marathon Gold Corp. [MOZ-TSX] which has been receiving approximately $100,000 per year in explo- ration grants from the Junior Exploration Assistance program and 75% of the costs of recent metallurgical tests from the Research and Development Council of Newfoundland and Labrador,. Marathon Gold is focused on their 100%-owned Valentine Gold Camp located 57 km south of the historic mining town of Buchans in the west-central area of the island of Newfoundland. The com- pany is led by President and CEO, Phillip Walford, a geologist for the better part of 40 years. Walford is one of the founders of Marathon PGM that was sold in 2010 to Stillwater Mining for $110 million. Sherry Dunsworth is the VP of exploration with over 30 years in the industry; she is also a director of the Mining Industry of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Valentine Gold Camp hosts a large gold system that stretches along an 18-km structural corridor within the 24,000-hect- are property. Only 10% of the gold trend has been assessed in any great detail with many targets yet to be drilled. The com- pany's focus has been on four, near-surface deposits within the camp: Leprechaun, Marathon, Sprite and Victory. The four deposits are all open along strike and depth and share in the resource of 1,060,100 ounces of gold grading 2.20 g/t measured and indicated and 200,000 ounces of gold grading 2.85 g/t inferred. On-going exploration has resulted in the discovery of many new gold occurrences along the highly prospective Valentine Lake thrust fault and associated splay faults where the majority of the gold mineralization occurs. The largest of the four deposits is the Leprechaun deposit that has both an open pit and underground resource. The Marathon Gold: building gold resources toward a PEA phillip Walford, president and Ceo of marathon gold, examines some diamond drill core at the Valentine Lake gold project on the Island of Newfoundland. Courtesy marathon gold Corp.