Tipahaakaaning Property
In January 2007, Superior Diamonds Inc. (since renamed Northern Superior Resources Inc.), a related party to the Company by virtue of certain common directors, entered into a 50/50 joint venture agreement for gold exploration on Lake Shore Gold´s Ti-pa-haa-kaa-ning property in northwestern Ontario. Under the terms of the agreement, Northern Superior contributed mineral claims, issued 75,000 Superior common shares to Lake Shore Gold and agreed to spend $500,000 on exploration over three years, including a firm commitment of $50,000 in the first year. During 2007, Northern Superior spent $1,144,880 of exploration expenditures on the property and has earned its 50% interest in the property and is the project operator (the Company´s share of expenditures in 2007 was $322,440).
The joint venture has received positive gold grain data, including a significant number of pristine gold grains, from an overburden-sampling program on the property. The recovered gold grains define a dispersal apron approximately two kilometres long from a potential source of the gold grains with a strike length of at least six kilometres. The average number of gold grains identified in 98 overburden samples was 135, up to a maximum of 478.
Analyzing overburden samples for the presence of gold grains is a common exploration procedure in overburden-covered terrains. The gold grain values obtained on the Ti-pa-haa-kaa-ning property equal or exceed those from significant gold deposits discovered elsewhere on the Canadian Shield.
In early 2008, a winter diamond drill program was initiated on the property. The drill program tested targets believed to be the source of the previously reported strong gold grain dispersal train and builds on the geological data derived from the previous drill program. Drilling was completed by the end of the second quarter of 2008.
On August 6, 2008, Northern Superior announced the results of the winter-spring drill program at the Ti-pa-haa-kaa-ning project and the launch of a new exploration program involving overburden and bedrock mapping to be followed by a second phase of drilling. The exploration programs are aimed at gaining the information required to identify the source of gold grains associated with the highly-prospective, two kilometer long dispersal apron, first announced in the fourth quarter of 2007.
On January 6, 2009, Northern Superior announced the results of drilling in the summer and fall of 2008, including the discovery of a new gold showing and several gold-bearing ductile shear zones at the head of the gold grain-in-till dispersal apron in the Big Dam area of the Ti-pa-haa-kaa-ning property. The new gold showing, discovered from work completed during the summer drill program, consisted of several separate quartz-veins hosted by granodorite that returned 3.34 grams per tonne gold and 8.9 grams per tonne gold, both over 0.34 metres.
Work to date in 2009 has largely focused on completion of an updated 43-101 report.
