Major Hart REE Property
(work-in-progress)
The Mount Major Hart rare earth/ rare metal project (Figure 1) in north central British Columbia(BC), Canada may perhaps hold the largest deposit of rare/critical metals and rare earths in North America (Figure 2).
The project with the limited amount of previous random rock sampling taken over an area of 3.5 kms by 1.5 kms (Figure 3) contains a variety of critical industrial and rare earth metals; assays of the rocks returned consistent anomalous values of gallium, hafnium, niobium, zirconium, tin, tantalum, rubidium (700 ppm), and rare earths.
Figure 1 Property location map
Figure 2 Claim Map of Rare Earth Ridge’s Mt Hart Rare Earth Project
The stream assays contain anomalous amounts of lithium, fluorine, boron, germanium, scandium and beryllium which provided a broader range of assay values over the rock assay report for reasons of light element separation. The Property is located on crown land in a frontier region of northern BC consists of three claim block (103 units) with an area of 1725.14 hectares or about 6.75 sq miles (Figure 2).
Golden Tiger acquired the key ground 100% (Figure 4) by staking with no royalties attached to any production of metals from the Property. No surface rights are granted to any private property holders.
The “Knoll” in the right center of the Property (Figure 5) is the target area for quarry operations hosting a combined volume of 375,000,000 mÑ representing 937,500,000 tonnes of rock encompassed in a 375m-tall by 1.0km by 1.0km. The key ground is home to a majority of the previous rock sample locations.
Figure 3 Satellite Imagery of the prime “real estate” area
Figure 4 Regional Location Map
Figure 5 Satellite image of “The Knoll” area (Google Earth tilted)
Golden Tiger’s Lotto-Re/Mt Hart, mega-sized rare earth project covers the most favourable area underlain entirely by Tertiary (Eocene) aged “porphyry style” perialkaline granite; highly prospective for tin, rare earth elements and rare metals deposits. The project is comparable to other world class high tonnage low grade rare earth deposits that are currently in pre-feasibility stage of development. The area is within the tin-tungsten belt of British Columbia and on trend to the southeast is Defence Metals’ Wicheeda rare earth project currently in a preliminary economic assessment phase of development. The tin-tungsten-rare earth belt trends from the USA border northwards into the Yukon then swings westward to form the prolific Alaskan Northern Tin Belt; the belt is known to host numerous advanced staged rare earth projects and former mines.
History and Geology
In 2010, the BC Government released an updated version of previous 1996 survey of silt sampling in the region of Mt. Major Hart with new assays including the rare earth elements. That survey enticed two prospectors to further investigate the cause of the mineralization in those creeks. In October of 2010, the prospectors went into the area not knowing how or why the rare earths were occurring. Their efforts are typical of an unknown area hosting mineralization; they proceeded like all prospects to do an area wide search to “hone down” the area causing the anomalous results. Consequently, silt samples from various streams draining the area all showed heighten rare earth elements and tin. Some silt assays around the southern side of the “Knoll” returned up to 19.8% Tin oxide and extremely anomalous rare earth-rare and critical metals. They sampled 14 distinct drainages of 1.5km to 5.0 km in length within an area of about 50kmÇ. Not knowing how the mineralization was hosted, the prospectors obtained several rock samples of the nearly invisible mineralization for further thin section and geochemical analysis.
Rock samples were of float as bedrock was lacking due to the extensive snow covered hillsides when the survey was conducted in late October 2010. The rocks samples gathered are from large, angular boulders within a talus covered areas on a random basis near the creeks’ silt sample stations. The rock samples were collected over a wide area encompassing an area of 1.5 kms by 3.5 km. The majority of the rock samples returned anomalous and consistent rare earth/critical/metals within the “Knoll” area (Table 1) as well as with the other rock locations. Samples HRCB 001, 002, 003, and HS007-F1 all have remarkable, constant rare earth/metal assays, the samples were taken from very angular large, un-weathered granitic blocks considered to be locally derived from their immediate source area. These samples were gathered over a distance of 1200m on the northwest side of the “Knoll”.
Petrography Analysis
Reference: Micron Geological Ltd Vancouver BC by P. C. Le Couteur, Ph.D, P.Eng
Hand specimens
“All the samples (Figures 1 to 3) are massive, pale grey, granitic-textured rocks dominated by greywhite feldspars and speckled throughout with glassy grey quartz and greenish-black biotite. The samples are hard and fairly fresh, but all show some rust-spotting on weathered surfaces and the interior of sample 3 is also weakly but irregularly oxidized to a pale brown colour. The overall grain-size is 3 to 5 mm and the rocks would be classed as medium-grained or coarse-grained depending on whether the boundary from medium to coarse grained accepted is 5 mm or 2 mm. The magnetic susceptibility is low, but a hand magnet indicates small spots of higher magnetism (due to magnetite clots). Total count gamma radiation is low-moderate, at about 30 cps above background (90 cps). K’spar and plagioclase are both present and the rock therefore belongs to the predominant subsolvus granite type. Magnetite (<1%) forms rare black anhedral, irregular-shaped clots to 2 mm across and in sample 3 occurs as small grains within biotite. The samples show small angular vuggy cavities to 2 mm across within which druzy crystals of quartz and other unidentified minerals are visible.”
The hand specimens are classified as “alkali-feldspar granite” akin to Rhyolites being finer grained, important to know when comparing the mineralogy of the Mt Hart with other “world-class” intrusive REE deposit types. Further comment on the mineral association of Biotite with the REEs and magnetite as follows: “Biotite forms irregular shaped grains 0.5 to 5mm across and range in colour from pleochroic pale golden yellow through brown, olive brown pale green to dark green. The smaller grains appear to occupy angular interstices (spaces between minerals) between quartz and feldspars which define their shape……. Biotite commonly contains inclusions of magnetite, while zircon, fluorite, and monazite were noted in biotite in all three samples. (Note, those minerals are commonly rare earth/metal bearing not to mention also bastnasite in biotite) Magnetite occurs as clusters….that tend to cluster with biotite and also as grains….across within biotite”. Below figures are typical of the association of biotite, magnetite and rare earth/metal minerals.
Comparison to other Worldwide Deposits
The table 2 below shows other world class mega-sized rare earth/metal deposits compared to Mt Hart. These deposits in below are compared as to the “Economy of scale” of operations even though they are low-grade mega tonnage, all have had a preliminary economic analysis conducted on them in recent years. The author conducted this search to compare the best matched world class deposit in terms of size and geology to the Mt Hart Rare Earth/Metal project; Roundtop in Texas, USA by US Rare Earths is the only deposit in the world.
Table 2 Mega-size Rare Earth Deposits
In Summation
The first pass prospecting program at Mt Hart gave very encouraging results, although limited but detailed in scope not only to the assaying/thin sections of the few randomly selected rocks over a wide area has shown the potential of the area to host a mega-sized tonnage of rare earth/metal elements. The thin section work has demonstrated the nature of how the rare earth/metals are associated with biotite/magnetite mineralization together with the medium to course grained nature of the granite rock yields a simple grind and magnetic separation of the rare earths/metals into a concentrate. The advantages of Mt Hart over Roundtop are the course grind and magnetic separation provided the bench tests for the Mt Hart come back positive. At Roundtop the rock is a fine grained rhyolite (course grained equivalent is Granite both are mineralogically similar) as well as the rare earth minerals of which some hosted in tiny cavities in the rock that require extensive grind and concentration via a heap leach pad.
The topography both at Roundtop and Mt Hart make these projects ideal for extraction, not underground but by surface quarry methods (block gravity methods). What’s needed at Mt Hart is to extend the rock sampling program throughout the “Knoll” area to determine the consistency and extent of the rare earth/metal mineralization. If these results are constant then clump together all the rocks from the program into one batch sample for a bench test of the ore to determine whether the project is viable to continue to the next phase of development.
Disclaimer Statement
“This summary report is not a definitive feasibility study and our Mt Hart project currently does not contain any known proven or probable ore reserves under SEC Industry Guide 7 reporting standards. This information sheet contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, as amended, including, but not limited to, statements regarding the potential development of the Mt Hart project, estimates and projections regarding the economic feasibility of the Mt Hart project. These statements involve known and unknown risks which may cause the actual results to be materially different.
Such factors include uncertainty of resource estimates and risks related to projected and estimated economics due to the uncertainty of mining processes. Further, the author of this report relies on the information provided by the BC Government Assessment Report Index # 32384 as filed with the Regulatory Mineral Titles Branch” The author has no interest in the Claims at Mt Hart, nor any shares in Golden Tiger Inc nor do I own any claims within the immediate area. The author has received a fee for preparing this summary report and further I do not expect any further work or remuneration to affect the findings of this independent property evaluation.
Brent Hemingway B.Sc FGAC, DBM
Consulting Geologist
