| Year |
Description |
|
| 2005-06 |
Company releases results from drilling program at the Upper Fir Carbonatite which demonstrated the existence of another deposit with similar mineralogy and chemistry to that of the Fir Property. |
| 2005 |
Company expands Blue River land position with acquisition of the Mud Lake Property. |
| 2004 |
Company commissions SGS Lakefield Research Limited to investigate direct acid leaching of its tantalum and niobium gravity concentrate. The company is encouraged by the results as the hydrofluoric additions used in the test program were less than that reported by a commercial operation employing similar processing technology. Further investigations and optimization are planned. |
| 2004 |
The University of British Columbia, along with Nelson concentrators, completed metallurcial work using a magstream separator. Overall recovert exceeded 92% of the available metal oxides. This exceeds previous results from pilot scale testing, hinting at the opportunity for further metallurgical refinements in the recovery process. |
| 2004 |
Metallurgical work on concentrate from the Fir deposit confirmed the prediction of high recoveries for tantalum and niobium (83 to 91 percent of the contained metal values). |
| 2003 |
Company commissions initial bulk sample gravity separation test using material from the Fir Property. |
| 2003 |
Indicated resource estimate for the Fir Property. The Fir carbonatite contains drill indicated resource of 5.65 million tonnes (Verzosa, 2003). |
| 2003 |
Updated inferred resource estimate for the Fir Property. The Fir Carbonatite contains a potentially open pitable inferred resource of 6.74 Million tonnes (Verzosa, 2003). |
| 2003 |
Company releases conclusions to Phase 1 metallurgical investigations which recommend a large scale bulk sample program at the Fir Property. |
| 2002 |
New Discovery -- exploration and sampling leads to the discovery of the Upper Fir Carbonatite 1.2km east of the main Fir deposit. |
| 2002 |
Company releases assay results from the 2002 Work Program. Results continue to confirm the large tonnage potential of the Fir Property. |
| 2002 |
Company releases preliminary cost assessment studies on the processing and beneficiation of the tantalum and niobium rich carbonatites from the Fir & Verity properties. |
| 2002 |
Company processing 300kg bulk sample of carbonatite from the Fir Property at Knelson Concentrators of Langley, British Columbia. Sample was designed to produce a large enough sample
of 'gravity concentrate' to allow the testing of multiple methods of upgrading the tantalum and niobium concentrate. |
| 2002 |
Inferred resource estimate for the Fir Property. The Fir Carbonatite contains a potentially open-pitable inferred resource of 5.2 Million Tonnes grading 194 g/t Ta2O5, 897 g/t Nb2O5, and 3.50% P2O5. (McCrea, 2002) |
| 2001 |
Diamond drilling at Fir, estimated to be 1200m in 6 holes. |
| 2001 |
Diamond drilling at Verity, total of 404m. in 5 holes; mapping and sampling. Assay results confirmed those previously by Anschutz Mining (Canada) Ltd. (release of Oct 22, 2001) |
| 2001 |
Ground geophysical surveys, prospecting, stream sediment sampling, preparation for drilling (Dahrouge, 2001) |
| 2000 |
Prospecting of new occurrences in recently logged areas, sampling of specimen pit for mineralogy (Dahrouge, 2001) |
| 1987-88 |
Serpentine Creek and Gum Creek carbonatites discovered (Digel et. al., 1989)
|
| 1984 |
Mapping and sampling (Pell, 1985) |
| 1982 |
Detailed mapping and sampling of known carbonatites (Aaquist, 1982b) |
| 1981 |
Diamond dirlling at Mill, Verity, Bone Creek, Fir, total of 29,964.9m in 28 holes; maping and sampling; 1:4,000 scale topographic map (Aaquist, 1982a) |
| 1979-80 |
Airborne and ground geophysics, geologic mapping and sampling, and 1,066.8m core drilling (Ahroon, 1980)
|
| 1977-8 |
Ground magnetometer and scintillometer surveys, prospecting, trenching, sampling and analysis (Jackson et al., 1978) |
| 1968 |
Geologic mapping of the Paradise Area (Rich, 1968) |
| 1967 |
Howard Creek area prospected by Earl Dotson of Falconbridge, Howard Creek carbonatites discovered and staked by Anthony Rich (Mariano, 1982) |
| 1967-9 |
Blue River carbonatites examined by Kennecott Copper Corporation (Mariano, 1982) |
| 1964 |
Carbonatite occurrences examined by Kennco Explorations (Western) Limited (Mariano, 1982) |
| 1955 |
Property examination by R. B. Rowe (1958) of the Geological Survey of Canada |
| 1954 |
Minor sampling (McCammon, 1954) |
| 1953 |
About 3 miles of road-building, stripping and trenching; Mill-showing discovered (McCammon, 1954) |
| 1951-52 |
Extensive geologic mapping, test-pitting and sampling; primarily examined for its Uranium potential (McCammon, 1952) |
| 1950 |
Several hand trenches, mapping and sampling (McCammon, 1950) |
| 1949 |
Carbonatite bodies first discovered by Oliver E. French, Zonolite Corporation examined the property for its Vermiculite Potential (Mariano, 1982) |
|
Property Summary
The following is a summary of prior work conducted at the Blue River properties:
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