Highbank Lake

The Highbank Property is located in North-Western Ontario, 60 km North of our Wabassi project and 40 km south of the Ring of Fire Ni-Cu-PGE and Chromite deposits. Highbank is a large layered intrusive complex (500 sq.km) discovered by Northern Shield Resources. Layered intrusions are highly sought after for their potential to host high-grade large tonnage PGE deposits as well as chromite and vanadium.

Numerous chromitite boulders have been found within the property. Chromitite is not only the ore from which chrome metal is produced but is the best indicator for PGE potential. A high-grade layer of vanadium-iron-ore has also been identified through drilling.

The Highbank Lake Complex is geologically similar to the Bushveld in South Africa that hosts the world’s largest reserves of PGEs, chromite and vanadium. Like in the Bushveld complex, several low-grade PGE “reefs” or layers have been intersected in drilling. Exploration continues for the main PGE reef.

The geochemical trends identified by Northern Shield from the drill cores have been extremely useful in understanding the geometry and orientation of the intrusion. The geochemical pattern observed at Highbank Lake can be compared directly to that of the Bushveld and hence the stratigraphic position of the drill holes within a layered intrusion can be deduced. The rock types intersected in drill holes 07HB -01 and 05 are comparable to the layers just above the main PGE layer or reef in the Bushveld complex.

Boulders of chromitite and grains of nickel and platinum sulphide have previously been found in the river where it traverses this zone.

Dr. Wolfgang Maier University of Western Australia, world-renown expert in the Bushveld and other PGE-bearing mafic-ultramafic complexes supported the comparisons made by Northern Shield

Since the Company’s acquisition of the property, systematic exploration has provided encouraging results at every exploration phase designed to demonstrate the very high potential for a PGE deposit hosted in a layered intrusion. The interpretation of the current available data suggests that the geological processes that are a pre-requisite for the formation of PGE-bearing reefs according to the model have occurred within the intrusion at Highbank Lake.

Vanadium-Titanium-Iron ore

Highbank also contains significant, vanadium (V205) titanium (TiO2) iron (Fe) mineralization. Drill-hole 06HB-04 intersected 5.2 meters of 0.75% V2O5 including a higher grade core of 0.98% V2O5 over 2.2 meters. The grade and widths are comparable to similar mineralization found in the Bushveld Complex.