Daana Magi Honours thesis abstract

The Paint Lake Deformation Zone is an east-west trending lineament that extends approximately 40 km east of Lake Nipigon, in theWabigoonSubprovincein the Superior Province of Ontario.  Sage Gold Inc. owns thePaintLakeproperty, host to a shear zone hosted gold occurrence at a major lithological contact.  This lithological contact occurs between the Northern Sedimentary Unit (NSU) and Northern Volcanic Unit (NVU) of the Beardmore-Geraldton Greenstone Belt, from north to south respectively.  Mapping of the property, combined with transmitted light microscopy and geochemical analyses revealed the Northern Sedimentary Unit to be represented by polymictic metaconglomerate, and the Northern Volcanic unit to consists of steeply-dipping pillowed to massive tholeiitic basaltic flows and interleaved lenses of intrusive high-Fe tholeiites, with one occurrence of a calc-alkaline dacite tuff.  A total of four rock suites were identified on the property and later confirmed using geochemical data.  An arc/back-arc environment was characterized as the tectonic environment, within which the volcanic units were deposited.

The contrast between competent and incompetent rock units, and their associations with ductile and brittle structures is integral to the presence of alteration and mineralization.  Gold associated with pyrite occurred most often at or adjacent to lithological contacts between rocks differing competencies.  This idea can be examined on various scales, from the regional scale of thePaintLakedeformation zone and its relation to the contact between the NSU and NVU, to the outcrop scale in which mineralized quartz veins occur within contacts of differing lithons of rock.  Significant contrasts between the rock units are important, otherwise there might not be enough opportunity for considerable gold mineralization to occur.