VERTICAL EXPLORATION INC. Vertical Exploration Inc. provided a summary of the 2022 Phase 1 exploration program undertaken on its recently acquired MénardPéribonka (Ménard) wollastonite property in Quebec. The 2022 program's objective was to detect and define the presence of marble rock zones that could potentially host wollastonite mineralization. Vertical contracted Magnor Exploration Inc. (Magnor) to conduct and complete the work program on the Menard property between May and September 2022.
The Ménard property has an approximate surface area of 2,000 hectares (ha), and is located just north of Lac Saint-Jean in Saguenay, Quebec. The original historical work undertaken on the Ménard property was carried out by Resources Orléans (Orleans) between 1990 and 1992. At that time, Orleans also owned Vertical's St-Onge Wollastonite deposit which is located 26 km east of Ménard property.
During the 2022 Phase 1 program, extensive exploration work was carried out on numerous historical wollastonite occurrences that were primarily located in the northern part of the Ménard property. From the 648 sites that were visited on the property during the 2022 program, more than 584 samples were taken for geochemical assay for trace elements and major oxide elements. These assayed samples are from grabbing/prospecting (256 samples), channelling (158 samples, 97.72m) and portable drilling (170 samples).
More than 59 samples selected for prospecting contained wollastonite, varying from 5 to 67% wollastonite, and these were from sites located primarily in the northern part of the property. Magnor undertook hand-made trenching to reopen the old trenches and complete the channelling work, and this work confirmed the presence of wollastonite-rich rock bands ranging from 5 to 71% wollastonite over a metre to several meters in width (< 3.3m). The mineralized bands persist laterally for several dozen metres right up to 100 meters in length.
Some areas in the northern part of the property were evaluated by 46 small bore (BQ) portable drill holes totaling 77.1 metres. The BQ holes were moderately dipped to intersect foliation and mineralization near a right angle to obtain true thicknesses of intersected mineralized intervals. Twenty of these BQ holes intersected wollastonite mineralization, ranging from 5 to 44% wollastonite over hole lengths ranging from 0.30 metres to 5.08 metres.
The wollastonite zones identified during the 2022 program can potentially measure up to a hundred meters in width by several hundred meters in length. However, these zones are not homogeneous, and the wollastonite-bearing marble bands are most often intercalated with barren rock bands and/or crosscut by felsic intrusive dike and plug. Overall, the Company considers the 2022 Menard Phase 1 exploration program to be a success.
This is based on the fact that most of the historic wollastonite mineralization results attained by Orléans were confirmed in the field during the 2022 program, and additionally new wollastonite mineralized sites were found both in the northern part and in other parts of the Menard property. Orléans had originally identified a mega wollastonite mineralized zone up to 300 metres wide by 2,000 metres long in the northern part of the property characterized by series of non-continuous outcrops with concentrations ranging from 5 to 40% wollastonite. The 2022 program confirmed this wollastonite mega zone by identifying 18 mineralized zones, of which 14 zones are in the northern block of the property.
