The Hood 10 VHMS deposit of Nunavut, Canada: a case history

Abstract

Hood 10 is a small polymetallic (Cu - Zn) VHMS mineral deposit located in the Archean aged Slave Craton in arctic Canada, and is 100% owned by MMG Ltd. The deposit is hosted in the Napaktulik volcanic belt, a bimodal greenstone belt of approximately 2.67Ga age. The deposit was initially discovered in the early 1970's by Texas Gulf, but the property has changed hands several times over the intervening years, with drill programs in the mid 1970's, early 1980's and early 1990's resulting in a non-JORC compliant resource of 1.2M tonnes of 4.4% Zn and 4.1% Cu. The ore body had been defined along a 250 m strike length and to a depth of 220m. The property was acquired by MMG Ltd in 2009. The deposit was clearly visible as a small low apparent resistivity anomaly with a coincident magnetic high in a 1998 DigHEM survey and showed a small response in a 1993 in-loop fixed loop time domain EM (TDEM) survey. Axial component borehole TDEM measurements were undertaken on select holes during the 1992-1993 drilling campaign. MMG Ltd conducted significant geophysical exploration on the property for the first time in 2012 and acquired further surface and airborne TDEM over the deposit in conjunction with 3-component borehole TDEM on 11 of 12 holes drilled into the deposit that year. New geophysical modelling of the TDEM results, drilling results, recent surface geological mapping and structural studies have siginificantly increased the understanding of the deposit. The current non-JORC compliant resource stands at 2.4M tonnes of 3.52% zinc and 4.54% copper.