Work History
 
Staked within R cl 1-1295 (YC68334) in July 2008 by ATAC Resources Ltd. The claims are part of the larger Rackla Gold Project and were staked following the discovery of gold mineralization in 2008 at the company’s Tiger occurrence (MINFILE occurrence 106D 098) located 3.2 km to the north of the Bengal occurrence. Following staking, the company performed a helicopter-borne magnetic and variable-time domain electromagnetic survey over the newly staked area, including Bengal occurrence.
 
In 2012, ATAC Resources carried out a soil sampling grid over the Bengal occurrence and performed hand trenching proximal to elevated soil anomalies. Prospecting and geochemical analysis of samples from the trench were also performed at this time. ATAC extended and sampled the Bengal trench, prospected and soil sampled in the area in 2013.
 
In 2015, ATAC Resources carried out an extension of the soil sampling grid to the southeast of that returned the highly anomalous gold-in-soil values known as the Airstrip occurrence (MINFILE occurrence 106D 126). Prospecting was also performed in 2015. In 2016, RAB drilling was performed at the Bengal occurrence.
 
Regional & Property Geology

The occurrence lies with the Rau Trend between the Dawson and Kathleen Lakes thrusts, which form part of a band of regional-scale thrust faults that imbricate rocks of Mackenzie Platform and Selwyn Basin. The occurrence area lies on the western margin of ancestral North America and is underlain primarily by shallow water carbonate and clastic sediment rocks of the Mid-Proterozoic to Paleozoic Mackenzie Platform and the Neo-Proterozoic to Paleozoic, regionally metamorphosed Selwyn Basin clastic rocks. These rocks formed a fault-bounded sediment package which was thrust northeasterly during Jurassic to Cretaceous times by the Dawson and Kathleen Lakes thrust faults onto predominantly Proterozoic rocks. Following thrust faulting, Late Cretaceous (94-90 million years) intermediate to felsic plutons of the Tombstone Suite were emplaced (Mortensen et al., 2000). A second compressional orogenic event around 65 million years saw the emplacement of felsic intrusives assigned to the McQuesten Suite.
 
Other than the immediate area surrounding the Tiger deposit (MINFILE occurrence 106D 098), the occurrence area has not been geologically mapped in detail. ATAC Resources (AR 096936) has mapped 3 main units in the area comprising the Rau Trend:
1. Cambrian to Ordovician massive, grey dolostone,
2. Ordovician and/or Silurian bedded, grey and buff silty limestone and massive white limestone, and
3. Silurian to Devonian thick, bedded dolostone and limestone.

The company has assigned all three units to the Cambrian to Devonian Bouvette Formation. Colpron’s 2013 geological map generally supports this interpretation; however it uses slightly different age dates and doesn’t include the oldest rocks (Cambrian to Ordovician dolostones) within the Bouvette formation.

Thin volcaniclastic horizons assigned to the Ordovician Marmot Formation are interbedded with the Ordovician and/or Silurian limestones and a narrow sliver of Mid-Proterozoic Fifteen Mile Group dolostone underlies the Bouvette Formation rocks to the southwest. Devonian and Mississippian Earn Group comprised of black shale and chert bounds the Bouvette Formation to the south east and north in the southern half of the Rau Trend property.

Mineralization at the Rau Trend varies and consists mainly of: sediment-hosted replacement-style Au; structurally hosted Ag-Pb-Zn; skarns; Au-bearing quartz veins; and transported gossans/unknown deposit style (AR 096936).

The Bengal occurrence is hosted in moderately dipping basinal arigllites interbedded with fossiliferous carbonate debrite layers and lies within in area mapped as Earn Group shales (Blusson, 1974).

Mineralization & Results

The Bengal occurrence was discovered in 2012 within an intermittent gold-in-soil anomaly. Prospecting and trenching of the occurrence revealed “highly friable argillites interbedded with fossiliferous carbonate debrite layers” (AR 096069). Carbonate horizons were preferentially oxidized with evidence of hydrothermal alteration forming coarse-grained dolomite crystals similar to those hosting the nearby Tiger deposit (MINFILE occurrence 106D 098). Gold mineralization is associated with pyrite and elevated arsenic and bismuth values.

Soil sampling in 2012by ATAC Resources returned gold-in-soil values up to 2.36 g/t Au. Hand trenching in the area of this sample exposed rocks with lithology and alteration similar to the Tiger deposit (MINFILE occurrence 106D 098) and returned samples with anomalous gold values up to 3.19 g/t Au. Samples of oxidized, dolomite altered material returned values between 0.3 g/t Au and 0/8 g/t Au (AR 096597).

Follow-up trenching, soil sampling and prospecting was performed in 2013 by ATAC Resources. The 2012 trench was extended 7 m to the northwest and chip samples of highly altered argillite returned gold values between 0.25 g/t Au and 4.59 g/t Au (AR 096728). Prospecting in the Bengal area during 2013 also returned an anomalous shale sample with 0.95 g/t Au. Targeted soil samples to the northeast returned up to 1.42 g/t Au.

In 2015, a prospecting and soil sampling was performed. Soil sampling led to the discovery of a large gold-in-soil anomaly that is now referred to as the Airstrip occurrence (MINFILE occurrence 106D 126).

Assessment Reports that overlap occurrence