Summary:
The Barlow property is located within units of the Harricana-Turgeon belt of the Abitibi Greenstone Belt in the Archean Superior Province. The Harricana-Turgeon belt consists of volcanic and sedimentary rocks that are found in large east-west trending alternating bands cut by several intrusions of igneous rocks.
The southern contact of the iron formations outcrops at several places in the Iron Hills area. Trenches for sampling purposes done by Atlin-Ruffner and Armore are still visible on these sites. Based on drill holes, the thickness of overburden above the rest of the deposit is estimated to average 8 m (26 ft) and it is thicker on the western and northern parts.
So far, the iron formation has been drilled over a length of 3 350 m. It is striking azimuth 285-295° with a northerly dip of 75-85° in the central and the eastern parts and southerly at 75-85° in the western part. Its width ranges from 200 to 600 m, with the western end being wider. Its northern contact is generally clean-cut with a sequence of andesites, argillites and greywackes. Its southern contact is with greywackes and andesites and is generally gradual; as the magnetite content diminishes, minor pyrite starts to appear. According to M. Taner, it is a “typical Algoma-type banded iron formation” (BIF). The rock is fine-grained and well-banded with millimetric to centimetric beds of iron-rich material alternating with millimetric to centimetric beds of light colour quartz-feldspar rich metasedimentary rock. Sedimentary facies are well preserved. The unit contains generally 50% oxide minerals, mainly magnetite with minor hematite as specularite, generally close to fault zones.
The BIF unit contains centimetric to metric layers of greywacke in which small amounts of disseminated magnetite are generally also present and some narrow barren horizons of andesite that are probably dykes. The magnetite-rich layers or horizons assay between 20 and 30% soluble Fe with the magnetic Fe content averaging 73% of the soluble Fe.
On the Iron Hills, the mineralization is composed of a mm to dm alternation of fine grained, dark grey to black, well laminated, magnetite (and/or hematite) rich beds and of quartz-feldspar rich metasedimentary (greywacke) beds (Taner, 2011). The iron oxide content of the rock that is mostly made of magnetite varies from 10 to 70% of rock volume; however, the iron content in the bands of metasediment that is made up of disseminated magnetite grains represents less than 10% of rock volume. Locally, the iron formations contain few centimetric to metric horizons of barren metasediments and of mafic to intermediate volcanics, including some andesite porphyry. In addition, it is crosscut by narrow dykes of lamprophyre and of felsic intrusives and very locally by fresh gabbroic and granitic intrusions. Bedding that is commonly well developed and subvertical or steeply dipping to the north between 75° to 88° strikes approximately E-W. Laminae rich in magnetite and hematite are inter-layered with laminae containing very little iron minerals. The thickness of the laminae varies from 1 mm to about 5 mm. The barren bands of volcanics and metasediments are parallel to the bedding. Nice sedimentary textures, such as graded-bedding, slumping and folding are frequently observed (Taner 2011). All geological units are metamorphosed into the greenschist facies.
Mineralization is open mostly in East-west directions and can be interpreted in the range of tens of kilometres. The strong anomalies of the Iron Hills correspond to the Iron Hills deposit and extend for more than 8 km with widths varying between 200 and 600 m. information from surface and from drilling suggest the mineralization is steeply dipping. Insufficient work has been done to ascertain any mineral potential on the Property other than the historical estimates and current mineral resources done on the different projects within the Property.
The banded iron formation outcrops on the summit of the Iron Hills over a distance of more than 4 km, west of the Harricana River. The outcrops are located along the southern contact of the magnetic anomalies that coincide with the iron formation at this locality. This is the same iron formation with strong magnetic responses that extends into the Orvilliers and Adam River sectors, as confirmed by Barlow’s recent drilling. However, on these two (2) sectors, it rests under about 30 m of muskeg and overburden. The Adam River iron formation is formed of two (2) lineaments.
The principal lineament, the northern one, has been explored by Barlow over a distance of 1.5 km with six (6) additional drill holes in 2012. The banded magnetic iron formation is much similar to the formation of the Iron Hills, except for the presence of graphitic material that is locally abundant, as well as some strong hematitization of the BIF zones. The formation is sub-vertical with a true width (approximation) varying from 120 to 305 m. On the western extension of the Iron Hills formation, the ground magnetic survey shows also two (2) parallel and large iron formations, locally interrupted by north-striking faults. All together, the iron formations extend in an east-west direction over a distance of more than 35 km.
Deposit Type
The mineral deposits type on the Property are the Algoma type. All related exploration work was done in that understanding the Algoma Type is the one most present on the Property.