Summary:
The Seymour and Root Properties lie within the Precambrian Canadian Shield that underlies approximately 60% of Ontario. The Shield can be divided into three major geological and physiographic regions, from the oldest in the northwest to the youngest in the southeast. All projects are located in the highly prospective greenstone belts that have regional history of spodumene-bearing pegmatite discoveries and occurrences.
Eastern HUB - Seymour
The general geological setting of the Seymour Lithium Asset consists of the Precambrian Canadian Shield that underlies approximately 60% of Ontario. The Shield can be divided into three major geological and physiographic regions, from the oldest in the northwest to the youngest in the southeast.
The Seymour Lithium Asset is located within the eastern part of the Wabigoon Subprovince, near the boundary with the English River Subprovince to the north. These subprovinces are part of the Superior Craton, comprised mainly of Archaean rocks but also containing some Mesoproterozoic rocks such as the Nipigon Diabase.
The bedrock is best exposed along the flanks of steep-sided valleys scoured by glaciers during the recent ice ages. The exposed bedrock is commonly metamorphosed basaltic rock, of which some varieties have well-preserved pillows that have been intensely flattened in areas of high tectonic strain. Intercalated between layers of basalt are lesser amounts of schists derived from sedimentary rocks and lesser rocks having felsic volcanic protoliths. These rocks are typical of the Wabigoon Subprovince, host to most of the pegmatites in the region.
Pegmatites are reasonably common in the region intruding the enclosing host rocks after metamorphism, evident from the manner in which the pegmatites cut across the well-developed foliation within the metamorphosed host rocks. This post-dating relationship is supported by radiometric dating; an age of 2666 + 6 Ma is given for the timing of intrusion of the pegmatites (Breaks, et al., 2006).
The pegmatites in North Aubry have a northeast plunge direction varying from 10 to 35 degrees from horizontal some 800m downdip extent and 250-300m strike. The North Upper and North Upper high-grade component within, appears to wedge towards the southeast and is still open down dip and to the northwest.
Southern pegmatites are thinner and less well developed with higher muscovite content and appear to have a more north to north-westerly trend and dip more shallowly to the east. These pegmatites are also hosted in pillow basalts.
The pegmatites are zoned with better developed spodumene crystal appearing as bands, often at an acute angle to the general trend of the pegmatite.
The dominant economic minerals are spodumene with varying proportions of muscovite, microcline, and minor petalite and lepidolite.
The adjacent pillow basalts contain minor disseminated pyrite and pyrrhotite.
Western HUB - Root
The Root Lithium Asset is located within the Uchi Domain, predominately metavolcanic units interwoven with granitoid batholiths and English River Terrane, a highly metamorphosed to migmatized, clastic and chemical metasedimentary rock with abundant granitoid batholiths. They are part of the Superior craton, interpreted to be the amalgamation of Archean-aged microcontinents and accretionary events. The boundary between the Uchi Domain and the English River Terrane is defined by the Sydney Lake – Lake St. Joseph fault, an east west trending, steeply dipping brittle ductile shear zone over 450km along strike and 1 – 3m wide. Several S-Type, peraluminous granitic plutons host rare-element mineralization near the Uchi Domain and English River subprovince boundary. These pegmatites include the Root Lake Pegmatite Group, Jubilee Lake Pegmatite Group, Sandy Creek Pegmatite and East Pashkokogan Lake Lithium Pegmatite.
The Root Lithium Asset contains most of the pegmatites within the Root Lake Pegmatite Group including the McCombe Pegmatite, Morrison Prospect, Root Lake Prospect and Root Bay Prospect. The McCombe Pegmatite and Morrison Prospect are hosted in predominately mafic metavolcanic rock of the Uchi Domain. The Root Lake and Root Bay Prospects are hosted in predominately metasedimentary rocks of the English River Terrane. On the eastern end of the Root Lithium Asset there is a gold showing (Root Bay Gold Prospect) hosted in or proximal to silicate, carbonate, sulphide, and oxide iron formations of the English River Terrane.
The Root Pegmatites are internally zoned. These zones are classified by the tourmaline discontinuous zone along the pegmatite contact, white feldspar-rich wall zone, tourmaline-bearing, equigranular to porphyritic potassium feldspar sodic apalite zone, tourmaline-being, porphyritic potassium feldspar spodumene pegmatite zone and lepidolite-rich pods and seams (Breaks et al., 2003). The Root pegmatites have been classified as complex-type, spodumene-subtype (Cerný 1991a classification) based on the abundance of spodumene, highly evolved potassium feldspar chemistry and presence of petalite, mircolite, lepidolite and lithium-calcium liddicoatite (Breaks et al., 2003).