NEODYMIUM + PRASEODYMIUM

The Mount Discovery Rare Earths Project

The Mount Discovery Rare Earths Project

High-grade critical rare earths at surface

  • MINERALS OF INTEREST:

    Rare Earth Elements

  • LOCATION:

    Southern Quebec, Outaouais Region

  • SIZE:

    ~11,000 Hectares

  • STATUS:

    Active Grassroots Exploration

OVERVIEW

  • Located in the province of Quebec
  • Mining friendly jurisdiction with advantageous financial incentives
  • Low cost electricity
  • Well qualified labour force
  • Excellent infrastructure with road access
  • Lower cost exploration
  • High neodymium and praseodymium values in grab samples

INTRODUCTION

The Mount Discovery property was originally acquired in 2021 for its rare earths potential and has since been the focus of most work for the company since. To date, 22 rare earths occurrences (neodymium and praseodymium) have been discovered and recent excavation work on some of these showings has established that mineralization has size potential. In the fall of 2022, channel sampling results from King returned 27 metres of 3.20% total rare earth oxides (TREO).

LOCATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE

Situated in Southwestern Quebec near the town of Fort-Coulonge, the property is ideally located near excellent infrastructure consisting of both paved and gravel roads and powerlines. The area benefits from a local workforce, hydroelectric dam, and various industries.

GEOLOGY

The property is located in the south-central part of the Grenville Province, which is composed of multiple terranes or large crustal blocks. These terranes, or fault bounded crustal blocks, are exposed over a 300- to 500-kilometre-wide belt which extends from Southwestern Ontario to Labrador and divide the Grenville into the Autochthonous, Parautochthonous and Allochthonous Tectonic Belts.

The Autochthonous belt consists of Archean rocks of the adjacent Superior and Rae Provinces and Paleoproterozoic rocks of the Labrador Trough that were undisplaced and undeformed by the Grenville Orogeny. The Parautochthonous belt is a transitional buffer zone between the undeformed Autochthonous and the deformed and transported Allochtonous belt.

Also, the property is located along the northern portion of the Ottawa-Bonnechere Graben which extends in a northwest direction in this area. The northern boundary is called the Mattawa Fault and the southern boundary is called the Petawawa Fault. These faults are traced west of Lake Nipissing towards Sudbury, where the faults appear to die out. To the east, the boundary faults are traced past the City of Ottawa towards the City of Montreal, where the faults appear to link up with the St. Lawrence rift zone.

To the north of the Mattawa Fault stands the rugged Laurentian Mountains of Quebec, the remains of an ancient mountain chain. To the south of the Petawawa Fault stands the rugged Opeongo Mountains of Ontario, which are also the remains of an old mountain range. The property is in the central portion of the rift in terms of length, but also right on its northeast margin, on the Quebec side, along the major Mattawa fault. This Mattawa fault system is clearly visible on the property with the presence of a major cliff which continues along the entire Ottawa Valley.

No detailed geological mapping has been done on the property, but government surveys have identified several lithologies in the area. These include marbles, calco-silicate rocks, metagabbros, carbonatites, amphibolites, granites and banded pegmatites, paragneiss and diabases.

EXPLORATION HISTORY

The Mount Discovery property and surrounding area has been the focus of sporadic exploration work since the mid-1930s. The first work, which was undertaken by the Government of Quebec, focused more on the geological and structural reconnaissance of the greater Pontiac region.

As early as the 1950s, a few occurrences of iron and titanium – containing magnetite were identified in the area followed by uranium.

From the 1970s to the late 1990s, some regional studies, such as reconnaissance mapping and Landsat image observations, carried out by the Quebec and Canadian governments permit to re-interpret and update the geological and structural characteristics of the greater Grenville Province and thus re-evaluate the mineral potential to better identify favourable zones for exploration and the discovery of industrial minerals and critical and strategic minerals. In the mid-1990s, a prospecting and sampling program was undertaken in the vicinity of the property to assess the potential for industrial minerals targeting rutile (considering the market value at the time), but no economic value was obtained.

In the mid-2000s, prospecting work was also undertaken on the current site of the property in Litchfield Township. The substances that were sought were gold, silver, copper, zinc, nickel, platinum and palladium. Old trenches and pit rocks were sampled for multi-elements but no significant results were obtained. However, trace element of sulphides revealed traces of gold and copper. A few samples were assayed for rare earths, returning significant values at what is now known as the King showing. No follow-up work was undertaken until NeoTerrex reconfirmed the discovery in 2021.

NEOTERREX WORK

From November 2021 to July 2023, NeoTerrex mainly carried out exploration work on the west claim block in Litchfield Township consisting of magnetic and spectrometric surveys, prospection, reconnaissance mapping, stripping and trenching. As of July 2023, a total of 22 REE occurrences (>1% TREO) has been located on the property and eight different sites have been excavated, with at least two (King and Sicilian) demonstrating mineralization continuity over several metres.

High-grade critical rare earths at surface

Among the highest Neodymium values in entire province of Quebec (Grab samples of over 7000 ppm)

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