Noront Resources

Hoov:

I often thought about this report from Kaiser bottom fish. I copied some of it below but I wish the pictures can be shown of the portion you mention straddling FNC. I copied the link below and the whole article with pictures can be seen here.

If you can figure out how to copy the straddling picture here it would be great.

http://www.kaiserbottomfish.com/s/Ex... ...

If I go into Fancamp's website the following is written:"Carrying on to the NE of Eagle One, targets 1-5 and 1-6 on Noront's ground may also represent Eagle one type targets, (but, no information is presently available). The large magnetic anomaly on the north part of Fancamp's ground again may represent a higher structural level such as seen at targets 1-2 and 1-3 with conductive sulphides present at still greater depth, a view strongly supported by results of the recently flown airborne VTEM survey."

Here is a portion of what the Kaiser link had:

"But what about the tonnage? The 3-dimensional rendering above was apparently produced by a university professor based on the drill coordinates provided by Noront. It has received widespread circulation through email and Internet postings. I have seen a 3-dimensional modeling done by Freewest's team which does not flesh out the mineralized zone in the same manner but does suggest a similar southerly plunging irregular body. The drill plan below produced by the Temex team suggests a somewhat southwesterly strike. If we assume a pipe-like body with a diameter of 75 metres, a strike of 150 metres, and a 4.5 specific gravity, we end up with a tonnage of about 3 million tonnes. Pessimists have been estimating tonnage in the 1-2 million tonne range while optimists have been estimating 2-5 million tonnes. Because we have assays for only a handful of holes, it is hard to assign an average rock value to this body of mineralization. If we assume a $1,000 per tonne rock value, the GMV ranges $1-$2 billion for the pessimistic tonnage scenario, and $2-$5 billion for the optimistic scenario. That is not world class by my definition, and based on what has been reported so far, the $773 million implied value for Noront's Double Eagle project offers poor speculative value. There is rational reasoning behind Paul van Eeden's masochistic compulsion to keep shorting Noront and blogging about his actions just before the stock lurches to new levels. But where I disagree with Paul and his geological advisor Brent Cook who worked out the geometry on the basis of Noront's disclosures is the assumption that what you see is all there will ever be to see.

Admittedly it has been disconcerting to watch Noront's exploration team get lucky with the first couple holes into an electro-magnetic anomaly and then start missing with modest stepouts. But one has to keep in mind that the interpretation of the conductor is based on HLEM data collected on 200 metre line spacing. The discovery sits on one of two claims acquired from a private company in May 2007 for 400,000 shares, a 1% NSR, and a promise to drill at least one hole by year end to keep the claims from lapsing due to lack of assessment work. Because Noront had raised a lot of flow-through money it decided it could afford to earmark $400,000 for this project. Management liked the EM conductor, and although it was on the edge of a magnetic high, which was not the preferred magnetic signature for a polymetallic VMS sulphide zone that theoretically should be associated with a magnetic low signature that could readily be interpreted as weakly magnetic felsic volcanics, the target host rock for VMS deposits, the conductor was enough on the edge of the magnetic anomaly to justify ignoring the likelihood that this EM conductor was just another case of graphite perched within magnetic mafic rocks.

That the discovery hole contained chalcopyrite (copper sulphide) and pentlandite (nickel sulphide) within a mafic rock called peridotite came as a total surprise to Noront managament and Neil Novak's exploration crew whose exploration focus in the McFauld's Lake area had been exclusively for VMS deposits containing copper, zinc, lead, gold and silver mineralization of which Spider and KWG had found several high grade but small lenses on nearby ground. Everybody who tackled the McFauld's Lake region had prioritized strong EM conductors coincident with magnetic lows as drill targets. EM conductors coincident with magnetic highs were simply ignored because the nickel-copper magmatic sulphide deposits with economic grades were not even considered a geological possibility.

This line of thought is probably driving the skepticism of observers who see this as an isolated high grade but small 1-2 million tonne freak. When you compare the Voisey's Bay system, which hosts 78 million tonnes of 2.2% nickel, 1.7% copper, and 0.134% cobalt with a rock value of $840 per tonne and a gross metal value of $66 billion, Noront's Double Eagle discovery looks downright puny. The Ovoid alone, whose discovery in March 1995 nearly 6 months after Diamond Fields pulled 71 metres of 2.23% nickel, 1.47% copper and 0.12% cobalt with a rock value of $828 per tonne in October 1994, hosts 31.7 million tonnes of 2.96% nickel, 1.89% copper, and 0.16% cobalt with a rock value of $1,100 per tonne and a gross metal value of $35 billion.

Thus when Financial Post reporter Peter Koven wrote the first meaningful mainstream media coverage of Noront's discovery on October 13, 2007, the headline "Is this Voisey's Bay II?" and quotes by Noront CEO Richard Nemis that "this could be bigger than Voisey's Bay" bordered on the ludicrous. Was Nemis just an incorrigible old-style promoter enjoying his last hurrah? The shorts have certainly thought this to be the case, and while I myself felt there was a good possibility that this discovery could scale to a world class level that would kick off a resounding Great Canadian Area Play, a logical possibility that has not yet been ruled out by systematic exploration, making such sure thing predictions struck me as mere wishful thinking. "

What changed my thinking was a total magnetic field map and an electromagnetic conductor map involving HLEM data processed by Scott Hogg & Associates on behalf of Fancamp Exploration Inc (FNC-V: $2.06) which owns a group of claims whose edge is about 200 metres from the discovery. In an effort to help my readers appreciate this information I have scanned the hardcopy, rotated it to give it a north-south orientation, highlighted the key geophysical feature, and annotated the claim block ownership. The EM map above shows a distinct EM conductor (highlighted in yellow) starting in the discovery area (circled) on the claim block Noront acquired from Greenstone/Condor in a southwesterly direction for about 300 metres before it bends south, and then curves back into a southwesterly direction for 2,000 metres before it peters out. If the mineralization Noront has discovered is associated with this conductor, we are dealing with a tonnage footprint in the tens of millions. Of course Noront will have to confirm through drilling that this mineralization is indeed associated with the longer conductor, and not just a short conductor that happens to adjoin the long one that might consist of the dreaded graphite. And of course assays will have to demonstrate to what extent similar grades prevail within this longer conductor. These are some big "ifs", but what is important is that these "ifs" do exist, something I was not aware of until Monday afternoon, and which I highly doubt Brent Cook was aware of when he analyzed the information so far disclosed by Noront. In the context of this geophysical information I think there is good reason to hold one's breath as Noront's drill rigs probe the length of the conductor.

An obvious question is why, if this EM conductor is so exciting, Noront had not drilled it a couple years ago when speculators were still optimistic that McFauld's Lake hosted major VMS deposits. The answer lies with the total magnetic field map above on which I have super-imposed in yellow the EM conductor. Note how it wraps along the flank of the magnetic high anomaly. The rocks represented by the magnetic high feature would have been interpreted as mafic or ultramafic rocks that are not associated with volcanogenic massive sulphide deposits, which are formed through seabed volcanoes with a felsic composition. Because nobody was considering the possibility of mafic rock hosted magmatic sulphide deposits, the conductor would have been dismissed as graphite within the mafic rocks. Noront was willing to drill the target on the Greenstone/Condor claim because it seemed to be a separate conductor whose association with a magnetic high might have been just the result of distortions that crop up at the edges of geophysical data sets. Of course Noront and everybody else is now hoping that it is all one big conductor representing 2,400 metres of nickel-copper-PGM bearing magmatic sulphides and that the initial discovery is similar to the Discovery Hill zone at Voisey's Bay! Noront is now conducting detailed ground geophysical surveys over this conductor prior to drilling.

Conclusion: What makes this story exciting is that numerous such untested EM conductors parked within magnetic highs exist within the McFauld's Lake region. The entire region can be considered virgin territory, untested for magmatic sulphide deposits, particularly if age dating now underway indicates that the peridotite that hosts the Noront discovery is Proterozoic aged rather than Archean, an outcome which indicates bigger size potential and location potential just about anywhere that there is evidence of mafic intrusives. Most of the companies are now participating in new airborne geophysical surveys that are being flown on 100 metre spacing. MacDonald Mines Exploration Ltd (BMK-V: $0.87) is gearing up to drill targets on its 100% owned McNugget claims. MacDonald is up 135% since I recommended it as a Good Absolute Spec Value Buy at $0.37 on September 18. Probe Mines Ltd (PRB-V: $0.87) is down a bit from my Good Absolute Spec Value Buy at $0.90 made on September 18, but that should change in the wake of a $3.7 million financing just announced.

Hoov, I often thought why Noront didn't focus more time on DE1 and resolve some of this mystery. Were they waiting for FNC to spend their money exploring and Noront would go after other areas of interest that were more shallow and easier to target? I remember the NR's about NOT increasing their land package in various areas around the ring. A lot more Noront colour on the map from one year to the next. I think they suspected they knew what they had but wanted to grab investigate outward and go "land grabbing" and strategic JV-ing like they did with GZZ& WPR and the bulleye with FWR.

What an exciting story and it's not just us posting that are intrigued millions of shares of exciting volume screamed excitement in the past couple of days.

Looking forward to a great few weeks.