NUNAVUT Not much has been heard about iron ore recently. However, Toronto-based BAFFINLAND IRON MINES has been drilling its Mary River deposit near Pond Inlet on Baffin Island. The company says the Arctic weather forced it to curtail its program somewhat, but the results are "highly encouraging."
The drill program successfully expanded the thickness of deposit No.1 as drilling was stepped out significantly down dip from previous holes. The program also more than doubled the strike length of the deposit to 2.8 km. A second deposit, No.2, 2 km east of the first, was drilled for the first time, and that hole ended in mineralization with a 106-metre intercept of specular hematite. Deposit No.1 is estimated to have a resource of 116.7 million tonnes at 68.3% Fe, 0.8% SiO2 and 0.03% S.
Baffinland hopes to delineate a resource that could support a 10-million-tonne/year direct-shipping iron ore operation to European markets. Drill samples are being tested by SGS Lakefield Research in Canada and Studien Gesellschaft fur Eisenerz-Aufbereitung (SGA) in Germany. Assays and metallurgical data will be available at www.baffinland.com as they become available.
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