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Project
Introduction 
The Lorraine property is located in the Omineca region of British Columbia, approximately 280 kilometres northwest of Prince George. Lorraine is a large property consisting of 119 mineral claims and is 30,658.7 hectares in size or 306 square kilometers (118 sq. miles). It hosts a large number of copper-gold occurrences related to alkalic intrusives.
The key claims were acquired in 1947 by Kennecott Corporation and were purchased from Kennecott in 1994 by Lysander Minerals Corporation. It was acquired by Eastfield Resources from Lysander Minerals through an option granted in 2000 and became an earned 50% ownership interest in 2005.
In 2005, Teck-Cominco was granted an option to earn an initial 51% interest in the property by spending $9,000,000 on exploration, with minimum budgets of $1,500,000 per year. Teck-Cominco may increase its interest to 60% by funding and completing a feasibility study. Should Teck Cominco decide to put the property into production, it may earn a further 5%, bringing its total interest to 65%.
In 2008, Eastfield and Lysander combined their interests in the Lorraine property, created a new company, Lorraine Copper Corporation, and spun it off to investors. The Teck-Cominco option is still valid until 2010, when they must decide whether or not to exercise the option.
Many Different Zones
The Lorraine property has many different zones and areas of interest. The Lorraine Main Area is divided into the Lower Main Zone and Upper Main Zone. To the immediate southeast is the South Main, Weber, Copper Peak and Bishop Zones which are theorized to be part of the Lorraine Main Area, and together may make up one large system.
Other zones a greater distance to the south or southeast include 2 Good, Rhonda, Dorothy, MacKenzie. To the northwest of the Lorraine Main Area are the All Alone Dome, Slide, Boundary, Misty and the Cirque/Fault zones. The Slide Zone was drilled by Teck Cominco in 2007. In addition to these known zones of mineralization, there are several other anomalies and prospective areas that remain untested.
Historical Drilling
The first diamond drilling on the Lorraine claims occurred in 1949 and since that time most drilling has been on the core Lorraine claims. Work on the Lorraine-Jajay property, which has included 182 diamond drill holes and 22 percussion holes, for a total of 204 drill holes totaling 31,080.84 metres. This drilling is summarized as follows: prior to the year 2000, 133 holes were completed totaling 16,458.71 metres; from 2000 to 2005 Eastfield oversaw the drilling of 64 drill holes for 12,016.13 metres. Twenty diamond drill holes have been completed on the Dorothy claims and approximately the same number in several scattered locations throughout the remainder of the property.
Geology
The Lorraine-Jajay property occurs within a large composite intrusive complex, the Hogem Batholith, which is located within a northwest-southeast trending Mesozoic remnant of a west facing volcanic arc termed Quesnel Terrane and part of the larger Quesnel-Stikine Terrane. The tectostratigraphic setting of the Quesnel Terrane has also been referred to as the Takla-Nicola-Stuhini Volcanic Arc.
The Quesnel and Stikine Terranes are a Triassic to Jurassic aged obducted island arc assemblage that forms an approximately 1200 kilometre long belt. The belt extends from the B.C.-Washington State border in the south, to the Yukon border in the north. The Quesnel Terrane is fault bound on the west and east, abutting older terranes. To the east are lithologies assigned to ancestral North America and less commonly smaller remnants of older island arc assemblages. To the west are mostly lithologies of oceanic provenance assigned to the Cache Creek Oceanic Terrane in the South and east facing Stikine Terrane in the north.
The Quesnel Terrane hosts several calc-alkalic porphyry copper-molybdenum and alkalic porphyry copper-gold-silver deposits throughout its length. Examples of alkalic past and present producing mines include Copper Mountain, Afton and Mt. Polley, as well as a number of deposits that have reached advanced stages of exploration such as Galore Creek. Deposits in the region that are likely also related, but are more of a calc-alkaline character as represented by the Red-Chris deposit, the Kemess Mine deposits and the Mt. Milligan deposit.
The Lorraine-Jajay property lies in the northern portion of the Quesnel Terrane and exhibits many characteristics similar to the Mt. Polley and Galore Creek deposits. Mineralization at these deposits is generally disseminated, pyrite deficient, is associated with magnetite and has narrow peripheral alteration halos flanking strong potassium alteration cores.
About the 2007 Deep IP
The 2007 exploration program was designed to evaluate a large (12 by 6 km) area that comprises the core of the Duckling Creek Complex and hosts most of the significant mineralized zones in the Lorraine area. A total of 90.6 line-km of IP geophysics were completed. The survey was designed to "look" down to approximately 450 m in depth, in order to test for continuity of the mineralized zones along strike and to depth. The geophysical survey was successful in outlining both existing mineralized zones, such as the Bishop Zone, as well as indicating new or extended targets such as an IP anomaly that extends for 2.0 km northwest from the All Alone Dome target. (Go to the Map section of this website to view the deep IP survey)
The IP data suggests continuity through the Lower Main Zone to Bishop Zone an area that has been previously interpreted but has yet to be drill tested between zones. Anomalies to the south of these zones indicate the potential for outlining further mineralization through Copper Peak and to the south.
It is also apparent that many anomalies gain size and strength at deeper levels. This is particularly significant indicating strongly developed systems that now appear to show greater depth extent and size than could have been known from previous data.
With regard to some of the individual targets that were previously known from shallow or surface data, interesting new observations can be made. The All Alone Dome Target (AAD) was previously described by a 500m by 500m coincident soil copper geochemical and IP chargeability anomaly. The deep IP now suggests an anomalous zone extending for at least 2 km as well as a large new anomaly appearing to the southwest of the main anomaly. This target area is now comparable in scale to the Main-Bishop area.
In the Boundary area it appears that the IP anomaly lies to the west of the drilling and has not been tested in its strongest part. The 2 Good (shortened from Too Good To Be True) anomaly in the southwest grid area is the most dramatic of all the anomalies by its size and strength, both of which show strong increase to depth. This target is 2.5 km long and open-ended. Previous shallow drilling did not test the stronger portions of the anomaly though one hole (05-101) did carry some pyrite zoning to pyrite-chalcopyrite toward the bottom of the hole suggesting a need for deeper drill testing.
Access
The Lorraine project is located in the Omineca mountains near the headwaters of Duckling Creek, approximately 280 km northwest of Prince George. Logging activity has placed forest access roads to within a few kilometers of the property.
The property is accessed by paved and all-weather gravel roads from Prince George, through the town of Mackenzie and along the main haul road to the Kemess Mine. Hydroelectric power is available to within 40 kilometres of the property as is access to the rail line along Takla Lake.
Lorraine has the big advantage of not being a logistically challenging prospect to work in or develop.
Drill Highlights
| Zone |
Hole |
Interval
(m) |
Copper
(%) |
Gold
(g/t) |
| Slide |
JTM-06-7 |
55.5 |
0.72 |
0.07 |
| |
JTM-06-10
Including |
70.9
22.9 |
0.26
0.24 |
-
0.15 |
| |
JTM-06-07 |
55.5 |
0.72 |
0.07 |
| Upper Main |
94-8 |
101.5 |
1.42 |
0.62 |
| |
94-8 |
72.3 |
0.93 |
1.72 |
| Lower Main |
2002-62
Including |
148.9
50.7 |
0.57
0.89 |
0.38
0.61 |
| South Main |
04-74
Including |
19.03
10.68 |
0.55
0.84 |
0.27
0.35 |
| Bishop |
91-7 |
66.7 |
0.95 |
0.34 |
| Ekland |
96-39 |
8.3 |
2.05 |
0.94 |
Comparables
Analogues to Lorraine-Jajay include Galore Creek (Novagold), Afton (New Gold/Abacus) and Mount Polley all located in British Columbia. These deposits are of major industry interest because of their typical high grades and environmentally friendly metallurgy.
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