PROPERTY INFORMATION
The Palmer Property is located in the Porcupine Mining area, 55 km, by road, northwest of the deep sea port of Haines, Southeast Alaska, at the northern terminus of the Alaska Marine Highway system. The Property consists of a contiguous block of land consisting of 340 federal unpatented lode mining claims, which cover an area of approximately 6765 acres (~2738 hectares or 27 square kilometres). Constantine has a 99 year lease and must make annual cash payments of US$42,500 to the property owners (50% Haines Mining-Exploration, Inc., and 50% Alyu Mining, Inc.). The owners retain a 2.5% NSR. There are no annual work commitments. To maintain the federal claims in good standing requires an annual cash payment of $125/claim or US$ 42,500 to the Bureau of Land Mangament (BLM).
PROPERTY HISTORY
Base-metal sulfides and barite were first discovered in the vicinity of the RW and South Wall Zones (Glacier Creek prospect area) in 1969 by local prospector Merrill Palmer. Palmer staked the discoveries and continued to prospect the area in subsequent years. In the early years following discovery, exploration focused on the economic potential of barite. Tests showed the baritic material to be suitable for production of drilling mud concentrates, although none of the prospects were developed. Many of the baritic units exposed in the area are highly oxidized and leached of sulphides, a feature of major exploration significance that was not fully appreciated until recently. It was drilling down dip of these surface showings beyond the influence of oxidation that led to Constantine’s RW and South Wall discovery intersections – 38 years after the original surface discovery.
In 1979, Anaconda Copper Company drilled the first three diamond drillholes on the Property, totaling 801 m, in the Glacier Creek Prospect area. All holes failed to intersect the main mineralized barite-base metal horizons, although one hole (GC-2) did intersect the narrow, distal expression of South Wall Zone III.
It was not until the exploration successes at Windy Craggy and Greens Creek were realized in the early 1980s that the base metal potential at Palmer was fully understood. In 1983, high-grade massive sulphide boulders up to 1.8 m (6 ft) in diameter and grading up to 33% Zn and 2.5% Cu were discovered at the toe of a small ice sheet near Mount Henry Clay. Twenty-six samples of various boulders collected by the U.S. Bureau of Mines returned an average grade of 19.3% Zn, 1.0% Cu, 0.4% Pb, 38.2 g/t Ag, 0.22 g/t Au, and 20.6% Ba, and their discovery led to four successive drill programs (Bear Creek Mining (Kennecott) 1984 and 1985; Granges Exploration Inc 1989; and Rubicon Minerals Corporation 1999, with a total of thirteen holes and 2958 m of core being drilled. None of the programs were successful in locating the source of the boulders, and the prospect remains an attractive exploration target.
In the mid to late 1980’s Newmont Exploration Ltd. pursued the precious metal potential at the Palmer Property, with particular attention being given to the Cap and Nunatak prospects (see Property Map Figure). At the Cap prospect, massive pyritic barite and baritic breccia was drilled in 1988 and 1998, with the best intercept of four holes being 134 g/t Ag over 23.2 m. At the Nunatak prospect, a 91 kg (200 lb) bulk sample divided into thirteen separate samples returned an arithmetic average grade of 11.84 oz/ton Ag and 0.092 oz/ton Au.
In the early 1990s, retreating ice exposed an outcrop of massive sulphide in the Glacier Creek prospect area that became known as the Little Jarvis occurrence (see Property Map Figure). Chip samples by Kennecott from the Little Jarvis occurrence yield up to 13.0% Zn, 7.0% Cu, 0.02 oz/ton Au, and 7.0 oz/ton Ag over 4.6 m (15 ft), although chip sampling at the same locality by Rubicon Minerals Corp. in 1998 yielded somewhat lower grades: 10.8 % Zn, 0. 27% Cu, 0.17 ppm (0.005 oz/ton) Au, and 44.2 ppm (1.29 oz/ton) Ag over 3.05 m (10 ft). The interpretation that the Little Jarvis occurrence was correlative with the Upper Main occurrence on the other side of the mountain to the southeast, led to Rubicon Minerals’ drill hole discovery of the RW zone in 1999. Rubicon intersected semi-massive to massive sulphide in four holes ranging from 2.2 m to 4.6 m in width and established down dip continuity of more than 200 m; however, due to deteriorating market conditions at the time Rubicon did not follow up on their initial discovery.
Constantine Metal Resources Ltd. was formed in 2006 with the purpose of exploring the Palmer property. The first of three holes drilled by Constantine in 2006 intersected 5.12 m grading 10.86% zinc and 44.4 g/t silver, and demonstrated the presence of massive sulphide 300 m east of Rubicon’s initial RW zone discovery holes. Following up on the success of the 2006 drill program, Constantine returned in 2007 and continued to intersect RW zone mineralization, highlighted by the 14 m intercept in hole CMR07-07 that grades 3.79% copper and 7.24% zinc. To date, semi-massive to massive sulphide (or its leached oxidized equivalent) of the RW zone has been intersected in ten holes, and the zone remains open in all directions to depth. An additional two holes have intersected significant footwall stringer mineralization.
The second to last drillhole of Constantine’s 2007 program intersected 24 meters of massive sulphide at what is now referred to as the South Wall zone. Drilling in 2008 focused on this new discovery, and included twelve holes (2 abandoned) that yielded a total of seventeen South Wall intersections. With relatively few holes, drilling in 2008 has outlined a framework of significant tonnage potential with all zones wide open to expansion. Future drilling will focus on expanding the envelope of mineralization, while also infilling and adding confidence to those areas already defined.
