Discovery
The Geminid deposit was discovered in May 2023, during Gold Candle’s first regional exploration drilling campaign. The drill program aimed to test ~ 3.5 km of the Larder Lake -Cadillac Break east of the historic Kerr-Addison gold mine. The discovery hole intersected a 23 m wide section of millerite mineralization in ultramafic host rock. Assay results from this intersection averaged to 1.9 % nickel over 23 m of core length. Upon confirmation of nickel mineralization, a follow-up drill program of 6 drill holes, spaced 75 to 100 m apart, was completed.
Location and Geology
Prior to the drill program, a drone magnetic survey was completed over Gold Candle’s land package that spans the distance between the historic Kerr-Addison gold mine and the Quebec border (~ 5 km). The magnetic survey highlighted the geologic contact between low-magnetic Timiskaming sedimentary rocks and higher magnetic ultramafic rocks of the Larder Lake Group. Northwest-directed drill holes were collared on the Gowganda formation intersecting approximately 100 m of this cover sequence before drilling into Timiskaming sedimentary rocks. Timiskaming sedimentary rocks are characterized by folded medium- to thinly-bedded sandstone to mudstones. The southern contact between the Timiskaming and older Larder Lake group ultramafic rocks is sharp and is the marker for the southern boundary of the Geminid mineralization. Larder Lake Group ultramafic and clastic facies, observed at the contact with Timiskaming host millerite-dominant mineralization in strongly deformed and boudinaged quartz veins. Mineralization is associated with a carbonate-chlorite-altered ultramafic unit, an aphanitic to glassy felsic unit with distinctive colour banding, and displays a stratigraphic relationship to a carbonaceous mudstone unit with massive pyrite mineralization. The deposit has been observed along a NE trending corridor that has vertical continuity between 130 and 700 m depth.
