It is my pleasure to share part of a great conversation that I had with Mr. Jody Dahrouge, who is a consultant and major shareholder of 92 Resources (TSXV:NTY). With his company Dahrouge Geological, Mr. Dahrouge specializes in the generation of early stage projects like the Hidden Lake Lithium Property owned by 92 Resources.
Peter: This looks like a neat photo from the field here, Jody. What are we looking at?
Jody: This photo shows a lithium-bearing pegmatite. One of our geologists was sampling it, while another took the photo. It's really great for characterizing what type of project we have. Here the pegmatites come to surface, they're fairly wide, and they appear to be fairly rich based on what we are seeing at the surface.
If you look at the size of the trees you can get a sense for where we are. It's not like you're on the top of a mountain in northwestern BC, waiting for a 10-meter snowfall to come and block you out for the winter. This is something you can access year-round. People may think of Yellowknife or the Northwest Territories as remote, but I don't believe that's the case here at our Hidden Lake Project.
For comparison, look at where the Nemaska Project is located relative to Quebec City or Montreal. Or the Rose Project owned by Critical Elements Corp., which I believe it's several hundred-kilometers away from the major cities. These projects are generally very far from a major center, but ours is 40 kilometers from the capital city. This picture might deceive you into thinking it's fairly remote, but it's clearly not the case. If this photo was of a geologist standing on a pegmatite that crosses the highway - that would explain the story a bit better.
Peter: How is access to this particular spot?
Jody: We are based out of Yellowknife and it is a 15-20 minute helicopter ride from Yellowknife to site. It's very short, which was helpful as we only had a few days to carry out this prospecting program. Crews would get dropped off right on the pegmatites. They're easy to land on because you don't have to worry about the rotors catching trees. Crews would go get dropped off, they'd sample the pegmatite, and the helicopter would come back in the evening to pick them up.
Peter: Wonderful. Drilling?
Jody: Very cost effective and efficient.
Peter: It looks like a great spot for drilling.
Jody: Yes, we are considering fairly shallow holes along strike to confirm continuity. For example, if you were to move back 10 meters from the pegmatite and angle the drill at minus 60-degrees, then you could get a confirmatory drill intersection. We have already channel-sampled across these, so with . a dense enough drill spacing, then you could start outlining a resource. Potentially, this could all be underway as early as this fall.
Peter: RC holes?
Jody: I would go with core. I don't think RC would save you much money up here.
Peter: OK. Is there much puzzle to the stratigraphy here or is it pretty clear?
Jody: One possible concerns is that these things pinch and swell. Do they potentially pinch out at depth? That's something we're going to find out. Given the sheer length of pegmatites on the surface, I'm skeptical that will be the case. Could these be faulted off and moved? Yes, of course. This is part of the Burwash Formation which is 2.5 billion years or older. Obviously, that is a long period of time in which to introduce faulting. Things like that might complicate exploration a little bit, but that's the nature of exploration.
Peter: What do we see in this detailed section on the bottom left of the picture?
Jody: The white rock would be the pegmatite. There are a few boulders off to the left that are light colored, as well. These might be more inter-fingered pegmatite.
If you channel sample something on surface and it is 10 meters wide, then there's nothing to say that it will be smaller or larger. You mentioned that the mineralization seems to repeat on a kilometer-scale, but it also does something similar at a smaller scale. When you go to drill one of these deposits, you can find another just five meters away. That is a typical feature of pegmatites.
Peter: Great to hear about the fact that the deposits can be inter-fingered. I wonder how that relates to the fact that these deposits are typically distal to a large granite intrusion. You mentioned that the host rock is sedimentary. There seem to be pretty thick mineralized zones at the Hidden Lake project from surface. That's exciting.
Jody: Agreed, Peter.
These things need structural preparation to benefit from an intrusion. There needs to be something nice and linear, a space to occupy. Given the propensity of pegmatites to occur within this belt on a massive scale, there's nothing to say that an individual pegmatite doesn't repeat at a much smaller scale. If you found 3 or 4 pegmatites grouped together, then that could add substantial thickness in a drill hole and substantial tonnage potential.
Peter: My impression from this picture is that the mineralization is dipping off to the right, but I have no basis for that.
Jody: Until we drill these things, we don't know. We're guessing that most of these things are sub-vertical and hopefully extend to great depth. If we had a shallow-dipping one, then that would be great as it could potentially open a lot of tonnage down plunge over a great distance. However, that's hypothetical at this point.
I think the next step is for us to get out there. We have great exploration ahead of us at Hidden Lake. We are going to drill these things and try to build ore bodies. Hopefully it's that easy.
Peter: And how about this "potential pegmatite outcrop" marked on the map here in purple. The trend from HL6 to 12?
Jody: The purple lines represent targets we've identified from air photos and satellite images. I believe the red lines are pegmatites that have actually been visited in the field.
This image is actually a bit dated. This presentation is about a year old. Since that time, we've done substantially more air photo interpretation and satellite image interpretation. The amount of targets the crews have to visit is doubled or tripled.
Peter: Okay. What other items are on the work list for this fall?
Jody: As I say, prospecting and then drilling. We've done a bit of metallurgical work already to make sure there are no insurmountable hurdles at this early stage. Everything looks extremely positive.
That metallurgy is always something to consider. You wouldn't do that on something at an exploratory stage, but this is more about building inferred resources and taking those next steps. Getting the metallurgy sorted out at a very early stage has lots of advantages to it when you do go to do a pre-feasibility study or a preliminary economic assessment. We want to be aggressive. We want to advance this project starting this fall as quickly as possible.
Peter: You can do a lot just with prospecting at surface.
Jody: That's got it to where we're at now, but the next steps are drilling. The reason for this next round of prospecting and mapping that we are doing first is to identify where to drill. We want to drill the best possible targets first.
You always drill your best targets first. Is it possible that we haven't seen the best pegmatites yet? Sure, it's possible. We've seen some pretty good ones, but if there's something even better there then we need to get a drill on that first. That's the point of this program over the next couple weeks.
Peter: You mention the pinching and swelling. Are there also differences in the pegmatite from one area to another?
Jody: Yes, always. The mineralogy appears to very similar so far and that would suggest to me a common source. However, the sizes at surface are different from dyke to dyke -- dyke #3 or #4 was narrower than HL12.
Keep in mind, Peter, this is our first drill program here. When we go and target a number of these pegmatites, it's going to tell us which one's the thickest, the most continuous, and has the best orientation for building a resource. It will set the stage for the detail-focused drilling in the next round of exploration to follow.
Peter: Thank you for walking me through it all here, Jody. It is my first time sinking my teeth into any lithium project at all. I've heard good things about hard-rock lithium but I've never heard about it in Northwest Territories before. Amazing to hear about this whole belt with these repeating structures on it on a broader scale. Everything, all the details that you've provided here, thank you very much.
Jody: I'll send you an email with some historic government reports that you should peruse. I think they will educate you quite a bit.
Peter: And there are another couple projects in the company, too. Pontax Lithium in Quebec and the Golden Frac Sands in BC.
Jody: Yes, I mentioned a conversation I had with Adrian and I've seen him talk to shareholders about it. The message is always, "I'm not going to just stop at Hidden Lake, I'm going to build." If the green energy revolution is going to continue for generations, then why stop at one oil well? Let's drill many!
Thank you, Peter. It was really nice to meet you on the phone and thanks for chatting and I'm sure we'll talk more in the future.
Peter: Thank you, Jody Dahrouge!
Find out more at the company’s webpage at www.92resources.com/
Please note that I have been compensated to prepare this promotional material.
This document contains statements that are forward looking statements and are subject to various risks and uncertainties concerning the specific factors disclosed under the heading “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in the Company’s periodic filings with Canadian securities regulators. Such information contained herein represents management’s best judgment as of the date hereof based on information currently available. The Company does not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement.
Qualified Person Mr. Jody Dahrouge, P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined by NI 43-101, has reviewed and approved the scientific and technical disclosure in this document. Mr. Dahrouge is a director of the Company, and is not an independent Qualified Person.
