The claims comprising the Project are registered 100% to Patricia Lafontaine. On August 9, 2023, CoTec announced that it had entered into an option agreement to acquire 100% of the right, title, and interest of the mining claims comprising the Project.
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Summary:
The Property is within the southern domain (the Gagnon Terrane) of the Paleoproterozoic fold and thrust belt known as the Labrador Trough, which hosts extensive Lake Superior-type iron formations in the Sokoman Formation of the Ferriman Group, part of the Kaniapiskau Supergroup.
The iron formation is characteristically made up of a series of alternating magnetite and hematite-rich horizons, capped by quartz-silicate-carbonate rock and graphitic gneiss, and underlain by silicates, quartz, marble and gneiss formations.
The iron formation at Lac Jeannine occupied a narrow, tightly folded, 3 km long northwest-trending, doubly-plunging synform, overturned to the southwest, that reflects the folding characteristics of the regional structural pattern. The northwest-trending, elongated geometry of the iron-formation deposit was produced by the surface intersection of a tight, overturned fold sequence subsequently deformed by gentle, northeast-trending folds affecting a doubly-plunging effect on the northwest fold axes.
Deposit Type
Iron formations are classified as chemical sedimentary rock containing greater than 15% iron consisting of iron-rich beds usually interlayered on a centimetre scale with chert, quartz, or carbonate. Ore is mainly composed of magnetite and hematite and is commonly associated with mature sedimentary rocks.
Iron formations can be subdivided into two types, related to two major types of tectonic environments: the Lake Superior-type on continental shelf and marginal basins adjacent to deep seated fault and fracture systems and subduction zones along craton borders; and the Algoma-type along volcanic arcs and rift systems, and other major disruptions of the earth’s crust.
The following are definitive characteristics of ore deposits of the Lake Superior-type iron formations (Gross 1996):
• Iron content is 30% or greater.
• Discrete units of oxide lithofacies iron formation is clearly segregated from silicate, carbonate or sulphide facies and other barren rock.
• Iron is uniformly distributed in discrete grains or grain clusters of hematite, magnetite and goethite in a cherty or granular quartz matrix.
• Iron formations, repeated by folding and faulting, provide thick sections amenable to mining.
• Metamorphic enlargement of grain size has improved the quality of the ore for concentration and processing.
Iron formation deposition coincided with volcanism in linear tectonic belts along the continental margins. Most of the sedimentary-tectonic belts in which they were deposited were characterized by extensive volcanic activity that coincided with the deepening of the linear basins or trough in the offshore areas and by extrusion and intrusion of mafic and ultramafic rocks throughout the shelf and marginal rift belts near the close or after the main periods of iron formation deposition (Gross, 2009).
Lac Jeannine Tailings Storage Facility Deposit
CoTec’s primary focus is on reprocessing the tailings material from the Lac Jeannine Mine and later, the Fire Lake Mine. This tailings material primarily consists of fine- to medium-grained quartz and specular hematite. The tailings storage facility contains free iron, offering a potential opportunity for reworking and extracting additional iron.
Mineralisation
The iron formations underlying the Gagnon Terrane are classified as Lake Superior-type and hosted by the Wabush Formation, the metamorphosed equivalent of the Sokoman (iron) Formation, which consists of a banded sedimentary unit composed principally of bands of iron oxides, magnetite and hematite within quartz (chert)-rich rock with variable amounts of silicate, carbonate and sulphide lithofacies. Metamorphic grade ranges from greenschist facies near the Grenville Front to amphibolitegranulite facies farther south. As a result of the tectono-metamorphism, the iron formation has preferentially migrated to, and is structurally thickened in fold hinges, the mineralisation is coarsely recrystallized, and the mineral assemblage of the principal iron ores is martite-magnetite-quartz and specular hematite-quartz.
The principal iron-oxide deposits found in the Gagnon Terrane are grouped into two types: quartz/specular hematite and quartz/specular hematite-magnetite. The Lac Jeannine deposit was host to a mainly medium- to coarse-grained quartz/specular hematite.
There are no catalogued mineral occurrences on the Property; however, the Property hosts tailings material that was generated during the processing of ore from the historic open-pit Lac Jeannine Mine, which hosted a Superior-type iron formation deposit.
Between 1961 and 1976, the Lac Jeannine open pit mine extracted 265,897,000 (long) tons of ore at 33% iron, in mainly specular hematite form.