QUEBEC CITY – Mines Virginia has set a $10-million budget for exploration at several of its properties during the remainder of the year. Most of the work will be carried out in the James Bay area, in the Opinaca-Eastmain, Caniapiscau, LaGrande and Coulon regions of Quebec as well as the Baie Payne and Kuujjuaq projects in Nunavut. The company has already spent $5.5 million this year.
Virginia will invest $1.5 million in the greater Eastmain River and Opinaca Reservoir region, an area that is home to the world-class Éléonore deposit and the Eau Claire and Reservoir deposits. The Anatacau-Wabamisk project, located 30 km to the southwest of the Opinaca Reservoir, will benefit from a $1 million global budget to carry out mechanical stripping, geological mapping and prospecting. Prospecting and mechanical stripping conducted in 2012 and the winter 2013 drilling program outlined a very interesting new field of gold-bearing quartz veins in the east portion of the Wabamisk property. This field of veins, which is characterized by the frequent presence of visible gold, is of a plurikilometric extension and hosts the Mustang vein that is traced at surface over 425 metres laterally. This quartz vein network yielded up to 23.28 uncut g/t Au (11.14 cut) over 4.6 metres in channel and up to 22.65 g/t Au over 2.25 metres in drilling. Virginia is also planning to conduct prospecting, stripping and geochemical surveys on its 100%-owned Éléonore Regional project in the Opinaca Reservoir area. Virginia will also carry out regional reconnaissance in the Opinaca-Eastmain sector.
The other more advanced project that Virginia is working is the Ashuanipi project with a $1-million budget located in the southern portion of the Caniapiscau Reservoir, about 180 km to the northwest of the mining town of Fermont. Exploration carried out in previous years led to the discovery of a corridor of mineralized showings followed over more than 8.0 km within volcanics and a granodioritic intrusion. These polymetallic showings yielded, in selected samples, results varying from 0.15% to 3.92% Cu, 0.27% to 8.94% Zn and 0.13 g/t to 6.29 g/t Au in volcanics, and values varying from 0.4 to 3.8 g/t Au, 0.3% to 8.6% Cu, 0.1% to 1.3% Mo and 10.2 to 49.6 g/t Ag in the granodiorite intrusion.
Additional details of Virginia's exploration plans are available at MinesVirginia.com.
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