GEOLOGY, LITHOGEOCHEMISTRY AND MINERALIZATION AT THE SOUTH WOOD LAKE GOLD PROSPECT (STAGHORN PROPERTY), EXPLOITS-MEELPAEG SUBZONES BOUNDARY, WESTERN-CENTRAL NEWFOUNDLAND

The Staghorn gold property in NTS map area 12A/4 of western–central Newfoundland is situated along the southwestern boundary area between the Exploits, Meelpaeg and Notre Dame subzones of the Newfoundland Appalachians. The property includes three significant gold showings (Hilltop, Sure Shot, Falls) and one drilled prospect, the South Wood Lake (Main) zone. These discoveries have occurred episodically through grassroots prospecting since the 1970s. Exploration work including detailed ground geophysics, trenching and drilling, along with mapping, petrography and lithogeochemistry, collectively demonstrate that the mineralization at the Main zone is hosted by variably textured, mylonitized and brecciated, commonly strongly lineated, Mu±Bt monzogranite to granodiorite of the Ordovician (467 ± 6 Ma) Peter Strides granite suite. Mineralization consists of a network of thin (≤10 cm), anastomosing, quartz–pyrite–hematite±arsenopyrite veins, fractures and accompanying wall-rock sericitization and silicification. Gold is accompanied by elevated Bi, Sb, Cd, Ag and Te, and, in particular, strongly elevated As. Tiny native gold grains (<10μm) and small Bi-tellurides (<20μm) were noted in a vein and vein margin, respectively. Bournonite (PbCuSbS3) forms thin films on euhedral pyrite. The mineralized, brecciated and mylonitic monzogranite occurs as imbricate slices in the structural hanging wall of the northeast-trending, south-dipping Victoria Lake shear zone. The South Wood Lake gold prospect occurs in the antiformal core of a km-scale, post-mylonitization, Z-asymmetric flexure of the shear zone. Mineralization is likely post-Silurian.