The Douay Gold Project covers an area of more than ~357km² along the Casa Berardi Deformation Zone (“CBDZ”) within the prolific Abitibi Greenstone Belt (“AGB”) (Figure 3).

Figure 3: General Geology of the Abitibi Subprovince in Quebec with the location of Douay Gold Project, Casa Berardi Deformation Zone (CBDZ), and producing gold mines and camps.

Douay belongs to the alkaline-intrusive-associated gold class of mineral deposits (“IRGS”), which includes Beatty (>5.6Moz Au), Holt-McDermott (>1.3Moz Au), and Canadian Malartic (>17Moz Au) in the AGB.  The Douay area is also prospective for the more typical AGB orogenic style (structurally controlled gold-quartz veins and veinlets) of gold deposit as well as for volcanogenic massive sulphide (“VMS”) deposits.

The geology of the Douay project area consists of:  

• Taibi Group
  • a northern assemblage of mafic and felsic pyroclastic and sedimentary rocks (Taïbi Group);
• Cartwright Hills Group
  • a central assemblage consisting of basalts, co-genetic gabbros with lesser felsic volcanic rocks intruded by the 6.5 x 2 km Douay alkaline intrusive complex (termed the “DIC”) (syenite to monzonite, alkali gabbro and carbonatite) with its associated gold mineralization; and
  • a southern assemblage consisting mostly of basalts with siliceous-chemical sediments and chlorite-sulphide alteration zones that may be associated with VMS style of mineralization.

The volcanic stratigraphy at Douay strikes WNW to ESE whereas the major regional fault zones trend E-W or NW-SE. The Casa Berardi Fault Zone appears diverge in the Douay area with the CNDZ North and CBDZ South splays bounding the property (Figure 4). 

The Douay Deformation Zone (the “DDZ”) is interpreted as a splay from the CBDZ and is host to all the known zones within the Douay mineral resources estimate (“MRE”).  

Figure 4: General Geology of the Douay and Joutel Gold Projects. The Casa Berardi Fault Zone widens in the Douay area, with North and South strands merging to the east and the west. Note syenitic bodies several km to NE and NW of the Resource Area along the north strand of the Casa Berardi Fault Zone. The South strand of the Casa Berardi Fault Zone is also known as the Harricana Break. The Joutel Gold Project covers ~15 km of strike along this break.

Gold mineralization at Douay is hosted within 12 defined zones (Douay West, North West, Nika, Porphyry West/Central/East, Central, Main, 531, Zone 10, Zone 20 and Douay South) over a 6 km x 2 km resource area (Figure 5).

Figure 5: General Geology of Douay Gold Project showing outline of DDZ with potential strike-slip rotation generating pressure shadows around the DIC. Main mineralized zones are highlighted by geological setting.

Gold mineralization is hosted within the DIC and in the surrounding rocks with iron-carbonate-albite-pyrite alteration assemblages associated with higher gold values, generally above 5 g/t gold. Fractured syenite containing irregular fine pyrite veinlets in addition to disseminated pyrite, encompassing altered basalt fragments and magnetite-rich zones typically yields 0.1 to 1.5 g/t gold or more over intervals from tens of metres to over 150 metres.

Gold mineralization also appears to be associated with the following features:

• Proximity of a major fault to provide a plumbing system and structural permeability;
• Interlayering of different lithological units, especially mafic with felsic units with syenitic intrusions. These are thought to provide rheological contrasts to focus deformation, alteration and mineralization;
• The presence of chemically favourable mafic units providing iron for sulphidation of mafic minerals;
• The presence (for proximal style of mineralisation) or nearby (for more distal style) syenitic intrusions, as bodies, dyke swarms or narrow injections, interpreted to represent the source of metals and sulphur; and
• Sulphides averaging 2% but varying from trace to 5%.

Significant gold intersections in past drilling include: 74.11 g/t gold over 19.50m at the Porphyry East Zone (DDH DO-05-04), 37.46 g/t gold over 9.0m at Douay West (DDH DO-21-295), 8.80 g/t gold over 28.50m at the 531 Zone (DDH DO-21-310) and 15.81 g/t gold over 15.36m at the Main Zone (DDH 40688).

All gold zones are open along strike and at depth and the opportunity to expand the resource area through more drilling is considered excellent