MC Gold Property
Summary
Sutter Mining (Private) Limited ("Sutter"), a wholly owned Zimbabwe subsidiary of Zephyr Minerals, has optioned the MC Property (the "Property”), from an arms length citizen (the “Owner”), of Zimbabwe (News Release Jan. 12, 2023). Sutter may earn up to a 75% interest in the Property by making payments totalling $75,000 over four years and making a $250,000 payment upon Zephyr announcing commercial production. The approximately 100 hectare (Ha) property is currently being mined for gold by the Owner on a small scale.
Location
The Property is located in the of province of Mashonaland Central and boasts good infrastructure. The topography is hilly with property elevations above the valley floor in the 150 to 350 meter range. The majority of the project area is covered by open woodlands. The photo below was taken during the dry season in September, 2022.
Gold Mineralization & Exploration Potential
The Property is believed to have exploration potential for a large scale, shear hosted gold deposit based on active small scale mining on the site, favourable rock types, structure and attractive gold grades in both the shear zone and adjacent wallrocks. To the best of the Company’s knowledge, the Property has never been drill tested.
Management is of the view that a comparison with the Red Lake Gold Camp is warranted based on geological similarities such as; both Archean age, tholeiitic basalt host rocks, and shear hosted gold mineralization associated with a major regional shear zone. The Red Lake Gold Camp is one of the largest and richest gold producing areas in Canada.
Gold mineralization is hosted in a northeast trending shear zone in low grade metamorphosed basalt (metabasalt). The shear zone is at least 375 meters in length as evidenced by the current small scale mine workings, and of presently unknown thickness. Grab samples collected by Zephyr from adits, shafts and outcrops returned assays ranging from trace to 11.5 g/t gold. Of particular interest are assay results from two metabasalt wall rock grab samples both barren of quartz; one sheared and one unsheared that assayed 10.3 g/t gold and 4.4 g/t gold respectively. The highest gold assay, 40.1 g/t gold, was obtained from a sample comprising crushed metabasalt and quartz collected from the Owner’s unprocessed ore stockpile.
Cross section through the northeat extension of the Shamva Greenstone Belt*
Typical terrain on the MC Gold Property; September 2022
Geological Setting
The Property lies within Archean aged greenstones and was mapped on a 1:100,000 scale by the Zimbabwe Geological Survey between 1968 and 1972. The general area as well as the Property is underlain by the Arcturus Formation comprised of a volcanic pile of pillowed and massive tholeiitic basalts*. Intercalated are komatiitic basalts and ultramafic schists.* Directly east of the Property is a major regional fault which trends north-south.
Historical Mining & Exploration
The Property was discovered by the current owner in 2012 and to the best of the Company’s knowledge has never been the target of modern exploration, and as such there is no historic geological or mining data.
Initial Exploration Program
Subject to funding, the Company will conduct soil geochemical and geophysical surveys in conjunction with detailed geological mapping and trenching. The objectives of this initial exploration program are to ascertain:
1. The width of the main shear zone currently targeted by the small-scale gold miner;
2. The areal extent of possible gold mineralized wallrock;
3. Locate possible additional nearby undiscovered gold mineralized shear zones which may present a potential open pit
exploration target; and
4. Define additional drill targets over and above the prenounced drill targets (being the sites of current mining activity).
Geology with the outline of the clais boundary of the MC Gold Property.
Note: The shear zones in the map are referred to as "Reefs". This is a comon term for gold bearing rocks in Africa.
Location of grab sample from unsheared metabasalt which Location of grab sample from sheared greenstone grading 10.3 g/t gold.
assayed 4.4 g/t gold.
Inclined shaft of small-scale miner on the MC Gold Property. Highest assay
collected by the Company from this mine workings graded 6.6 g/t gold.
References:
*Jelsma H.A. and Dirks Paul H.G.M., Tectonic evolution of a greenstone sequence in northern Zimbabwe: sequential early stacking and pluton diapirism, Tectonics, Vol. 19, pages 137 and 145, 2000.
