New Carolin’s Coquihalla Gold Camp

Some 1,200 junior resource exploration and development companies are located in Vancouver, British Columbia.

Not many of those 1200 companies can claim to have; 28 kilometers of the Coquihalla Serpentine Belt, a gold camp, 715,000 ozs of inferred gold in three deposits and:

• A stable, just inspected permitted tailings impound with room to grow 
• Mine site just a 6 km drive down an all weather gravel road to the Coquihalla Highway  
• Power lines only six km away
• Extensive mine workings
• Water and mining permit already in place
• Politically mining friendly jurisdiction
• Positive response from local community

New Carolin Gold Corp. TSX.V – LAD can claim all that and a whole lot more.

Location, location, location, LAD’s permitted mineproject sits just 160 km east of Vancouver British Columbia, Canada, just 30 minutes from the town of Hope. Workers can complete their shifts and sleep in their own beds in their own homes. Supplies can be easily sourced and transported to the mine site.

As great as the above all sounds it gets better, much better... there’s enormous bluesky discovery potential in New Carolin’s Coquihalla Gold Camp.

Coquihalla Gold Belt

The Coquihalla serpentine belt is an elongate, north - northwest trending, steeply dipping ultramafic unit. The belt lies within a major crustal fracture, the Hozameen fault and exceeds 50 kilometers in discontinuous strike length. Exploration in B.C. 1989, Ministry of Energy and Mines

The Coquihalla Serpentine Belt hosts the Coquihalla Gold Belt.

New Carolin’s Ladner Gold Property (Coquihalla Gold Camp) follows the north/northwest-trending Hozameen Fault structure for approximately 28 km and exceeds 144 square kilometers covering substantially all of the accessible, yet still very underexplored, Coquihalla Gold Belt.

Fault structures are a very important component of regional and New Carolin’s Coquihalla Gold Camp geology.

Hozameen Fault

The Hozameen fault system can be traced from Washington State in the south to British Columbia’s Bralorne Gold Camp in the north.

New Carolin’s Coquihalla Gold Camp hosts 5 historic gold producers (Carolin, Emancipation, Aurum, Pipestem and Ward) as well as 24 other known gold occurrences - some of these gold showings were extremely high grade  running up to 120-130 oz/tonne. Most of these past producing mines and gold showings lie within 600 meters of the East Hozameen fault and most (over 90%) of the camp’s gold production is reported to have been within 150 meters of the fault.

This is extremely strong evidence suggesting the East Hozameen Fault acts as a conduit for gold rich mineralizing fluids (particularly in brittle zones where fractures easily develop) in the Coquihalla Gold Camp.

Gold-quartz Vein Systems

Host lithology suggests there are two main types of gold-quartz vein systems:

Ophiolite hosted - represented by gold camps such as Bralorne-Pioneer and Atlin in B.C., along with Grass Valley and Allegheny in the U.S.

Mixed mafic igneous-sedimentary hosted - includes major fault systems associated with serpentine and sedimentary rocks in well known gold camps such as the Mother Lode area in California and the Juneau Gold Belt in Alaska.

The Juneau gold belt is located in the southeastern portion of Alaska. This belt is approximately 160 km in length and is north/northwest-trending. The belt contains over 200 gold-quartz-vein deposits with production nearing 7,000,000 ounces (200,000,000 g) of gold. More than three-quarters of Alaska's lode gold was mined from the Juneau gold belt.

The California Mother Lode is a north/northwest-trending fault zone 1.5 to 6 kilometers wide and 190 kilometers long hosting hundreds of mines and prospects, including some of the best-known historic mines of the gold-rush era. Mother Lode gold deposits are gold-bearing quartz veins up to 15 meters thick and several hundreds of meters long. The California Mother Lode was one of the most productive gold-producing districts in the United States.

“The deposits of the Coquihalla Gold Camp, including the Carolin Mine, are believed to fit into this category (Mixed mafic igneous-sedimentary hosted – Rick) which is characterized by close proximity to deep crustal, right lateral, northwest trending fault systems with serpentine emplacement. Gold deposits have been found at depth in these fault systems, suggesting exploration potential at depth within the Carolin Mine.” Clifford A. Pearson,

Professional Geoscientist and consulting geologist, Technical Report titled “Technical Report on the New Carolin Gold Corporation Ladner Gold Project” dated May 29, 2015

Click on above map to see larger image and learn more

New Carolin commissioned an airborne geophysical survey in 2011. High resolution magnetic and radiometric data was collected over 762 line miles  equaling 90 sq. km. Survey results showed a major magnetic linear - attributable to the serpentine unit associated with gold mineralization - that can be traced over the entire mineralized trend on the property.

The radiometric data from the 2011 survey also indicated the presence of felsic rocks in the northern half of the property. Felsic dykes are associated with gold showings in the area - many of the northern gold showings are hosted by felsic dykes. Felsic rocks/minerals are at the other end of the elemental spectrum from mafic rocks/minerals.

Metallurgical Testing

Refactory gold ore is gold containing ore that is resistant to recovery by direct cyanidation and carbon adsorption processes. The Carolin Mine has, in your author’s opinion, slight to modest refractoriness.

Recent metallurgical tests have indicated that substantially improved gold recoveries are achievable, in the plus 90% range, compared to historical recoveries. The table shows gold recoveries that can be achieved in well designed and executed test work. The test work results provide a measure of confidence that potential future operations should not become uneconomic for purely technical reasons in the processing plant.

“Refractoriness (the degree of resistance to standard recovery methods) is generally due to total encapsulation of extremely fine gold particles by a host mineral that is impervious to the cyanide leach solution. As a result, refractory ores require physical or chemical pre-treatment for adequate gold recovery to be achieved through traditional cyanidation and carbon adsorption processes. Pyrite and arsenopyrite are the most common host minerals in refractory gold deposits.” SGS Minerals, Recovering Refactory Minerals

There are four common pre-treatment options for refractory gold ores:

• Roasting
• Pressure oxidation
• Bio-oxidation
• Ultra-fine grinding

“Q: Why did the original mill fail to extract the value contained in the tailings?

A:From the historical reports on the Carolin mine deposit, it is known that there is a minor refractory component which involved pyrite-arsenopyrite where gold particles are occluded within the host material making them inaccessible to chemical treatments. Additionally a minor carbonaceous component that had preg-robbing characteristics existed; gold in cyanide solution was effectually stolen out of the pregnant leach solution (PLS) by naturally occurring carbon that was unable to be captured and thus exited in the mill's waste stream.

Given the prefeasibility level metallurgical work conducted, the obvious explanation to therecovery problems experienced by the original Carolin Mill is the larger grind size used in theprevious plant - P80:180 μm compared to P80: 53 μm in the more recent metallurgical tailing testing. The processing plant simply may not have been able to successfully employ theflotation step necessary for sulphide recovery and/or the use of cyanide or grinding was not properlyoptimized.

Preg-robbing appears to be minor, natural carbon did not appear to effectthe overall recoveries during recent cyanide leach testing.” Adrian Daniel, Investigating the Reprocessing of Carolin Mine Tailings

Mineral Resources

Current 43-101 compliant Inferred Mineral Resources are now completed for three mineral deposits at the New Carolin Coquihalla Gold Camp. Much of the following information re resources came from the “Technical Report on the New Carolin Gold Corporation Ladner Gold Project” dated May 29, 2015 and filed on SEDAR.

Tailing Deposit

69 holes were drilled into 60% of the tailings to come up with the following resources.

Tailing Deposit Indicated Mineral Resource of 445,000 tons, grading 0.053 oz/ton (1.83gpt), for a contained gold ounces estimate of 24,000 oz.

Tailing Deposit Inferred Mineral Resource of 93,000 tons, grading 0.053 oz/ton (1.85 gpt), for a contained gold ounces estimate of 5,000 oz.

These resources are of economic interest because of:

• Site location
• Contained gold grade
• Easy accessibility
• Low extraction costs

McMaster Zone

McMaster Zone Inferred Mineral Resources Estimate of 3,375,000 tonnes, grading 0.69 gpt, for a contained gold ounces estimate of 79,540 oz.

The McMaster Zone is reported in the Inferred category due to sparse drill hole density and a relatively wide drill hole spacing.

A Whittle pit optimization exercise demonstrated that the McMaster Zone resources had a reasonable expectation of economic extraction through open pit methods.

Carolin Mine

Carolin Mine Inferred Mineral Resources Estimate, at 0.5 gpt cutoff, of 12,352,000 tonnes, grading 1.53 gpt for a contained gold ounces estimate of 607,000 ounces.

The Carolin mine resource is reported in the Inferred category due to the lack of drill core for verification, and the wider (50m) spacing of drill holes in the mineralized zones discovered after the mine shut down.

A Whittle pit optimization exercise was done at a 0.5 gpt gold grade cutoff to test the potential for open pit mining.

Open Pit mining Input parameters:

• Pit slopes of 45 degrees
• 95% mining recovery
• 10% mining dilution
• Mining costs of $2.50/tonne
• A 1.0 million tonne/year mining rate

Milling input parameters:

• A 90% mill recovery  
• Overall processing costs of $25.00/tonne

The price of gold used was $1,500/oz, reasonable considering the current gold price and Cdn/US $ exchange rate.

Using these parameters a significant portion (from surface down to the 875 meter elevation) of the Carolin Mine inferred resources has the potential to be economically open pit mined.

The remaining resources found below the 875 meter elevation and along trend to the northwest, could be extracted using underground mining methods after open pit production.

It’s very interesting that a mine development map dated May 1981 shows the 800 level being extended north for 1.2 km to the McMaster zone with proposed cross cuts for drilling.

Exploration Potential

• The Carolin Mine property is a past producing mine with considerable unexplored potential to add additional resources as the mineralized zone is open in all directions.

• Significant mineral resources remain within the mine area and the underground development is in place to quickly resume activities The underground Carolin workings have remained in good condition. In the diagram below the grey areas are mined out.

• Head grades were almost 5g/t but mill set up and mining skills were severely deficient. Nearly half of the gold mined, and delivered as mill feed, was not recovered but went to the tailings impoundment. Tailings are rich in gold and mineable.

• The property extends some 28 km along the trend of the East Hozameen Fault. All drill holes on the project to date have been relatively short (nothing more than ~200 m) and all have intersected gold.

• Exploration work in 1995 and 1996 developed significant new targets that have not been actively pursued to date. In addition, the Carolin Mine mineralization has not been systematically explored toward the McMaster zone. The diagram below illustrates the relative locations of the Carolin mine, Montana showing and McMaster zone. The trend line between them remains untested. The Montana showing has gold mineralization similar to that at the Carolin mine and McMaster zone.

• Historical trenching above the top mine adit (1000 level) at the Carolin Mine found considerable widths of good grade gold mineralization on surface. This occurrence was tested by a small 12-hole surface diamond drilling program in late 2012. Significant mineralization was encountered in all the holes, helping to further define the potential for a starter open pit.

• The McMaster Zone, a surface occurrence some 1.2 km along trend from the Carolin Mine workings has been explored with six campaigns of surface drilling, from 1975 to 2010. The more recent drilling expanded the zone and highlighted its open pit potential.

• Small past producing mines (Emancipation, Pipestem) and surface showings (Montana and Lorrainne) occur along the mineralized trend, within several km of the Carolin Mine. All have seen only piecemeal and sporadic exploration and have significant exploration potential.

• Exploration drilling by Athabaska Resources in 1995-96 outlined a new, open gold mineralized zone within the stratigraphically underlying Spider Peak Formation.

• There are copper, nickel, gold and silver showings on the bottom half of the property that have never been systematically explored.

• Consider the top and bottom sets of holes in the below diagram. They suggest to your author there is the possibility of much more gold to be found along the west side of the fault.

• Also interesting is the intersection across, on the west side of the fault, from the Carolin Mine.

Here’s a snippet from a December 11th, 2015 Mining MarketWatch Journal New Carolin article referring to the above diagram: “This shows 1 g/T +, you can see the directional drill holes right into the fault, the same thing was done at the top end of the Carolin and you can see that there are a couple ~200m drill holes there with all sort of grade going right towards the fault, that thing has never been drilled in between, nor above, nor below. Also note 4 holes at the bottom, only two were ever assayed because they couldn’t go after it, one of those has 100 m of ~2 g/t of all kinds of intersection in it, but there are some real high-grades. There were grades on every single drill hole into that fault, but none (meaning no drill holes – Rick) between the top and the bottom part; that’s about 1 km, and there has been none above towards the McMaster or anywhere following that fault.” New Carolin Gold Corp. Advancing Low-cost High-impact Plan to Affirm Historic 728,429 oz Gold with Bluesky Motherlode Potential

Exploration Potential Summary:

• Discovery potential along 28km’s of both sides of the East Hozameen Fault
• Potential open pit and underground mining scenario outlined between the Carolin Mine the Montana showing and the McMaster Zone
• Potential to discover new resources and expand old resources along this mineralized trend. Small past producing mines - Emancipation, Pipestem - and surface showings - Montana and Lorrainne - occur along the mineralized trend covering several km of distance from the Carolin Mine. All have have significant exploration potential
• Exploration drilling by Athabaska Resources in 1995-96 outlined a new, open gold mineralized zone within the underlying Spider Peak Formation
• Copper, nickel, gold and silver showings on the bottom half of the property that have never been systematically explored
• Gold deposits have been found at depth in these fault systems

It all adds up to amazing bluesky potential for further discovery. Your author’s opinion is that a lot more gold is waiting to be discovered.

Environmental and Sustainability

The following was pulled from New Carolin Gold Corp’s website. There does not seem to be any issues to upset environmentalists or First Nations people living in the area.

“The mill building was dismantled in 2006 as part of an environmental clean-up program. New Carolin Gold has maintained the tailings storage facility through clean-up and yearly inspections.

Other environmental aspects within LAD’s Coquihalla Gold Camp include:

• Not within any designated or proposed park or environmentally sensitive area
• No other designated commercial interest other than logging and mining. Approximately 65% of claim area has been logged. Some current logging ongoing. Numerous logging roads comprising > 30 kms throughout the claim area
• The claim area does not include any lakes
• No known environmental liabilities on site
• No potential acid rock drainage and metal leaching liability (acid-base accounting results indicate potential acid consuming material)
• LC50 fish mortality test of flotation tailings conducted by Lakefield Research in 1996 indicate fish mortality level was 0%
• Annual water sampling since 2009 of tailings outlet, portals and creeks indicate no hazardous levels of elements of concern including Fe, Cu, Zn, Pb, As
• Company has retained services of environmental consultants regarding fish habitat study
• Company submits annual reclamation report to BC government since 2008
• Company submits annual tailings storage facility inspection report to BC government since 2009”

Buy low sell high

“Stock-market bulls argue that Fed rate hikes are bullish for stocks, because the Fed wouldn’t dare raise rates unless the underlying US economy is really improving.

Meanwhile the stock-market bears believe Fed rate hikes are bearish for stocks because they mark the end of the easiest monetary policies on record which levitated the stock markets. 

The S&P 500 (SPX) climbed in the majority 6 of the 11 Fed-rate-hike cycles of the modern era, with an average gain of 11.1% during these wins…But during the other 5 cycles, the SPX lost 7.1% over an average duration of 13.5 months.

If the SPX’s performance during all 11 Fed-rate-hike cycles is averaged together, it is almost a wash with a mere 2.8% gain…It’s fascinating comparing this to gold…Gold’s average gain during these same 11 Fed-rate-hike cycles of the modern era was 26.9%, nearly an order of magnitude greater than the stock markets’!  Gold also rallied in 6 of these 11, but by a far-greater average of 61.0%...Stock-market bulls are betting on the wrong horse.” Stocks in Rate-Hike Cycles, Adam Hamilton

Regardless of gold’s perceived performance over the last few years gold’s performance is negative only in USD terms. In no other currency (but the U.S.’s), is gold in a bear market.

Gold is currently priced at US$1,076.73 an oz, in Cdn $’s gold is trading for $1,485.88 an oz, a difference of Cdn$409.15. That’s an enormous effect on your bottom line if you’re mining gold, or potentially heading for production in Canada – costs are priced Canadian, profits are priced American.

With disease, famine, drought, floods, climate change, heightened political tension, outright war and economic collapse all bubbling together to make a witch’s nasty brew, precious metals look attractive once again.

Food Chain

A Junior exploration company’s place in the food chain is to acquire and explore properties. Their job is to make the discoveries that the mid-tiers and majors takeover and turn into mines.

The bottom line for precious metal investors is that junior exploration companies own the majority of the world’s future gold mines.

This author believes that there is exceptional, and as of yet, undiscovered value in junior companies with quality assets in safe stable countries.

Investors seeking leverage to precious metals should focus on these companies as they have historically provided the best exposure to a rising precious metals price environment.

Conclusion

The updated May 29th, 2015 technical Report referenced to earlier in this article confirmed current resource estimates on three deposits - the Carolin Zone, the McMaster and the tailings impoundment.

The report also discussed a prior estimate of the potential quantity and grade of gold mineralization for just the Carolin Zone and states...”An internal New Carolin report, completed in April 2009, has provided an estimate of the potential quantity and grade of gold mineralization for the Carolin zone. The potentialis; a range of 5.0 to 5.6 million tonnes, grading between 4.2 to 4.8 gpt gold at a 2.5 gpt gold grade cutoff, or between 0.9 to 1.1 million tonnes grading between 8.0 to 9.0 gpt gold, at a 5.0 gpt gold grade cutoff.”

Looking at the average of the numbers presented, at the higher 5 g/t cutoff (because it’s more in line with historical head grades), one million tonnes of ore times 8.5 g/t equals 8,500,000 grams or 274,193 ozs of gold.

Consider the Greenstone-hosted quartz-carbonate vein Contact Lake Mine in remote Northern Saskatchewan, Canada;

“Minable reserves are 1.3 million tonnes averaging 8 grams gold per tonne, which is equivalent to 337,000 oz. (10.5 million grams). These are contained within a 600-metre-long zone extending to vertical depths ranging from 180 to 280 metres. In addition, the property hosts geological reserves estimated at 194,000 oz. (6.03 million grams). Gold production is expected to average 60,000 oz. (1.87 million grams) per year over a mine life of six years. The operating cash cost is expected to be about US$210 per oz., and the capital cost of developing the project is projected at $36 million.” - See more at: http://www.northernminer.com/news/saskatchewa...h.ZXxOTsYi.dpuf

I’m going to suggest to my readers that New Carolin Gold Corp TSX.V – LAD is not looking for a mineable gold deposit…they might already have one just outside Hope BC.

So, the question becomes, and remember to consider how much exploration potential their Coquihalla Gold Camp has, ‘how much more gold will LAD find?’

In your author’s opinion New Carolin Gold Corp TSX.V - LAD is going to soon claim 100% ownership of its Ladner gold property – the Coquihalla Gold Camp. A gold camp that, as we’ve seen, has a potential mineable deposit already and much discovery potential.

LAD is, in your author’s opinion, one of those juniors with exceptional, and as of yet, undiscovered value.

Is New Carolin Gold Corp TSX.V – LAD, and its Coquihalla Gold Camp, on your radar screen?

If not, maybe it should be.

Richard lives with his family on a 160 acre ranch in northern British Columbia. He invests in the resource and biotechnology/pharmaceutical sectors and is the owner of Aheadoftheherd.com. His articles have been published on over 400 websites, including:

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Legal Notice / Disclaimer

This document is not and should not be construed as an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to purchase or subscribe for any investment.

Richard Mills has based this document on information obtained from sources he believes to be reliable but which has not been independently verified.

Richard Mills makes no guarantee, representation or warranty and accepts no responsibility or liability as to its accuracy or completeness. Expressions of opinion are those of Richard Mills only and are subject to change without notice. Richard Mills assumes no warranty, liability or guarantee for the current relevance, correctness or completeness of any information provided within this Report and will not be held liable for the consequence of reliance upon any opinion or statement contained herein or any omission.

Furthermore, I, Richard Mills, assume no liability for any direct or indirect loss or damage or, in particular, for lost profit, which you may incur as a result of the use and existence of the information provided within this Report.

Richard owns shares of New Carolin Gold Corp TSX.V – LAD.

New Carolin Gold Corp is a paid sponsor of Richard’s site aheadoftheherd.com