Geology

Like the vast majority of Balmoral’s Detour Trend Project the Detour East Property is extensively overburden covered with the only known rock exposures being located along the Turgeon River which cuts across the southern portion of the Property from west to east. These outcrops are typically only well exposed at low water levels in the fall. Thus the majority of the geological information concerning the Property comes from drilling completed to date and available geophysical data including a detail 2007 airborne magnetic and EM survey completed by a previous operator.

The Detour East Property is divided into three, east-west trending, geological domains by the two major regional scale deformation zones which cut across the entire Property. The northern domain, north of the Sunday Lake deformation zone, is dominated by mafic volcanic rocks with lesser mafic and felsic intrusive rocks and local interlayered sedimentary lithologies. Magnetic patterns suggest dominantly east-west trending stratigraphy locally cut by northwest to northeast trending fault structures. These secondary structures, which can cross-cut or splay out of the Sunday Lake deformation zone play an important role in localizing gold mineralization at the nearby Detour Gold deposit. Regional geophysical data and drilling on adjacent properties suggests the presence of an iron-rich, strongly magnetic mafic volcanic sequence underlying the northeast corner of the property which appears to also be regionally fault bound and which could represent a fourth geological domain.

Across the Detour East Property the Sunday Lake deformation zone expresses itself as several sub-parallel zones of strong to locally intense shearing and exhibits a moderate degree of complexity. The deformation corridor spans roughly 500 hundred metres and features a prominent southeast directed splay near the eastern margin of the Property which cuts down through and across the central geological domain.

Between the Sunday Lake and Lower Detour deformation zones a regional magnetic low marks the presence of an extensive, possibly synclinally folded sedimentary sequence. Lithologically this domain is dominated by greywackes and turbiditic sediments which hosts lesser tuffaceous rocks and mafic/felsic intrusive rocks. A moderate sized gabbro complex outcrops locally along the Turgeon River and is intruded into this sequence toward its southern contact. A review of historic geophysical work suggest the presence of an east-west trending structural corridor within the central portion of this sequence, possible along a regional fold axis trend. Very little drilling has been completed within this domain.

The Lower Detour deformation zone is marked by a 300 to 500 metres wide corridor of shearing and faulting located near the southern margin of the Property. In general it appears more coherent and locally exhibits more intense deformation than the Sunday Lake deformation zone on the Property. Regional scale (drag) folding is evident along the margins of the Lower Detour deformation zone and may have acted to localize a number of known zones of gold mineralization, a model similar to that proposed for the Casa Berardi gold deposit 40 kilometres to the south. Several zones and occurrences of gold mineralization are located along this feature and neighbour Detour Gold has also recently completed drilling on a zone of high grade gold mineralization located along this zone of deformation.

To the south of the Lower Detour deformation zone lays a complex volcanic assemblage which includes both mafic and felsic volcanic rocks. Magnetic patterns suggest significant local folding within the northern portion of this sequence likely as a result of interaction with the Lower Detour deformation zone. Felsic volcanic rocks within this sequence host the Selbaie VMS deposit 25 kilometres to the east.

Three prominent north-trending, late (Proterozoic?) dykes cut across the east-west trending structures and stratigraphy on the Detour East Property. The eastern most of these three dykes cross-cuts and offsets the Lynx gold zone on the Encana JV block.