Zone Resources joins hunt for iron in Nunavik

This map from the website of Zone Resources gives you an idea of where the iron-hungry businesses in Nunavik have properties.

This map from Zone Resource’s website shows how large the large iron deposits of Nunavik’s Labrador Trough are thought to be.

Nunavik’s iron rush continues to pick up steam.

“We are in the beginning phases of exploration, but it is very exciting to see the area heating up,” says Zone Resources Inc..

This exploration and development company — the smallest of several companies vying for a piece of the iron-rich Labrador Trough that cuts the region along Ungava Bay south — reports that it’s finished a survey over its four properties there.

And the results show there is iron not far from Kuujjuaq, on Zone’s properties located 120 kilometres southwest of the community.

Zone planned “an aggressive exploration program” this summer to evaluate promising areas on its four properties and to further explore new targets.

Its survey saw an aircraft armed with geomagnetic tools flying 3,612 km back and forth to see where the best iron deposits lie.

In all, over about 121 km there’s what the company calls “favourable geology.”

Now Zone plans to start ground exploration and diamond drilling as soon as possible, the Vancouver-based company said in a recent news release.

As a sign of its seriousness, Zone has begun “an ongoing consultation process” with Makivik Corp..

Zone’s work activities will be serviced out of Kuujjuaq, “where the company will strive to maximize the use of local businesses and local employment.”

That may even see boats heading down the Koksoak River.

The 1951 exploration program on Zone’s Moore-Ross Mountain property was supplied by boat from Kuujjuaq via the Koksoak River, “so it can be assumed that this river is navigable by small boats. “

“The use of the river to bring in fuel for future drill programs should be carefully investigated,” the company says.



Quebec recently granted Zone a drill permit, allowing Zone to enter into a drilling contract with Discovery Diamond Drilling Limited, a company that Zone says has “extensive experience in drilling under Arctic conditions.”

Winter drilling during the 1950’s on the current Zone properties shows that drilling can be carried out year round, the company says.

Drilling will start this month.

Altogether Zone”s four iron properties cover 41,500 hectares in the Labrador Trough in Nunavik. They’re Girard, Red Knob Hill, Bob Lake and Moore-Ross, which shows rock with 42.9 per cent iron in at least one location.

The properties are adjacent to Adriana Resources’ Lac Otelnuk Project and New Millennium’s KeMag and LabMag projects.

Within five years Adriana Resources wants to start a mine building a mine at Lac Otelnuk.

Its $8.5 billion joint venture project China’s Wuhan Iron and Steel Co. Ltd. to produce 50 tonnes of iron a year for up to 100 years.

But to do, this they need an 850-km railway line from Lac Oteluk to Sept-Iles— as well as major improvements to the port there.

Tata Steel, a top-ten global steel maker from India, is behind Milennium Steel and its projects near the Naskapi community of Kawawachikamach.

Tata recently signed an option agreement with New Millennium for a $4.9 billion development (in which Wuhan Iron and Steel Corp. of China paid $120-million for a 60-per-cent interest).

This includes the construction of a 750 km pipeline for slurry as well as a transmission line — which would put the end of Quebec’s power grid even closer to Kuujjuaq.

Chalk up this new frenzy in developing iron in Nunavik to the world’s continuing hunger for new iron deposits and Plan Nord’s promises of new infrastructure.

“Quebec, and particular northern Quebec, is alluring simply because much of this area has yet to be properly explored, let alone developed. The Quebec provincial government has recently put together an $80 billion plan to develop this area wirh infrastructure and investment in mineral exploration. This makes it extremely appealing for smaller exploration companies, particularly Canadian exploration companies, to invest their money in the province and a region with such amazing untapped potential,” Zone’s president and chief executive officer Charles Desjardins said in an interview posted on the company website.