Bayswater owns approximately 7,300 hectares of land prospective for base metals in southeastern Ireland. The property is part of a historical mining district and has a historical resource estimate of 6 million tonnes averaging 5.3% Zn and 1.9% Pb (non NI 43-101 compliant and not to be relied upon). The Company believes the property deposit has excellent potential for discovery of new mineralized zones.

Location & History

The Avoca project is located in County Wicklow, southeastern Ireland, about 55 kilometres south of Dublin and and 12 kilometres northwest of the coastal port town of Arklow. The property consists of approximately 7,300 hectares of land within two prospecting licenses. The prospecting licenses straddle the Avoca River, which naturally divides the project into West Avoca and East Avoca areas. Various highways and local roads provide good access to the property. The main railway line south from Dublin passes through the centre of the project area and services the port of Arklow, on the Irish Sea. Local access within the prospecting licenses is along public and private roads, as well as farm tracks. The climate at Avoca is typical for Ireland, with generally cool summers and relatively wet winters.

The terrain is hilly, with much of the area mantled by glacial deposits.

In places, on the Avoca property, overburden may reach depths of several tens of metres, but in general the cover is thinner.

Surface relief in the license area increases from an elevation of about 30m above mean sea level along the south-flowing Avoca to more than 250m in the highlands to the northeast and southwest.

Numerous smaller supply centres in the surrounding region would be able to provide most of the general residential and small business infrastructure necessary for a mining operation. There is mining expertise in the country, power is readily available, and there is abundant water.

Mining of the stratiform massive sulphide deposits at Avoca for copper may have begun as early as 1720. It is estimated that nearly 12 million tonnes of copper ore averaging 0.75% copper, was mined from a series of open-pit and underground mines in the district. At West Avoca, small tonnages of undeveloped zinc-lead resources remain accessible through existing flooded underground workings down to a depth of 250m. Noranda Exploration estimated there to be as much as 6 million tonnes averaging 5.3% Zn and 1.9% Pb remaining in these areas (This estimate was not calculated in accordance with the standards of NI 43-101, and is provided for information purposes only and should not be relied upon as an indication of total resources). Further drilling in the 1980's produced higher grade intersections, including 10.1% Zn, 5.7% Pb, 0.48% Cu, 284 g/T Ag and 4.52 g/T Au over 8.3 m in the Kilmacoo zone.

Geology & Mineralization

The Avoca District is underlain by volcanic and sedimentary rocks. Prior to the opening of the present Atlantic Ocean basin, the volcanic belt which hosts Avoca was continuous with the belt that hosts the productive Bathurst volcanogenic massive sulphide district of Eastern Canada. The Bathurst Mining Camp hosts 45 deposits and 95 occurrences including the Brunswick No. 12 deposit with a historical (non NI 43-101 compliant and not to be relied upon) geological resource of 230 Mt grading 7.66% Zn, 3.01% Pb, 0.46% Cu and 91 g/t Ag.

The Avoca property is covered by widespread overburden and detailed geological information comes from underground workings, surface pits and clustered drill holes near known mineralization. The package of rock that hosts the Avoca mineralization is interpreted to have been folded into a large isoclinal folds. Mineralization occurs in the both the limbs and fold noses in this package of rocks.

The Avoca deposit includes major massive copper, zinc and lead sulphide mineralization in several forms including sheeted vein zones, banded sulphide layers and disseminations in certain favourable units, stringers of veins, bound within the layers of the rocks, and disseminated throughout. Sulphide mineralization at Avoca is a typical example of a simple volcanogenic massive sulphide (VMS) systems deposit. It includes an assemblage of pyrite, chalcopyrite, sphalerite and galena with variable but significant silver and gold. The deposits are indicated to occur over a narrow stratigraphic interval of rock and extend northeasterly-southwesterly over a distance of about six kilometres centred within the licensed area. The deposits are laterally zoned on a deposit basis and on a district basis. A central copper-rich zone extending for three kilometres along strike is flanked by massive sulphide zinc and lead zones to the northeast and southwest. Individual layer-bound massive sulphide zones are tabular and flattened to lens-shaped with thicknesses of 2 to 15 metres and strike lengths locally exceeding 700 metres. Significant associated silver and/or gold values occur in the sulphide bodies, particularly in the zinc and lead rich massive sulphide zones. Significant volumes of low grade sulphides occur as stringer zones and disseminations in the rocks beneath massive sulphide deposits, particularly in the central portion of the copper-rich zone.

Model analogues in eastern Canada suggest potential for a large mineralized massive sulphide system at depth, down plunge to the southwest from the central copper rich zone and adjacent zinc-lead rich extensions and along strike to the northeast and southwest of the known resource and mined area.

Exploration

In 2006, Bayswater completed 42.4 line km of deep penetrating IP surveys which delineated anomalous chargeability anomalies to depths of over 900 m in 5 grids surveyed along the 6 km mineralized Avoca trend. A 1,193 m diamond drilling program, consisting of two holes, was carried out in late 2008 to evaluate two of these anomalies. These holes encountered encouraging widespread alteration and sulphide mineralization in favourable felsic volcanic rocks, including occasional thin layers of massive pyrite and wide zones of quartz-pyrite stringers, both with associated lead-zinc mineralization in a close spatial relationship with geophysical targets, but failed to intersect significant (i.e. >20m) thick massive base metal sulphide zones. 

The best intercept was found in an inclined drill hole (KIL-1) in the Kilmacoo zone which assayed 9.5% Zinc and 3.3% lead over 1.8 m. This intercept was encountered at about 125 m in the inclined drill hole and occurs above two deep chargeability anomalous zones and subparallel to the shallow known mineralized zones at Kilmacoo. This is a new zone that requires further drilling to evaluate its continuity and potential—particularly any connection it may have with the deep chargeability anomalies. The hole also intersected a zone of disseminated and locally massive pyrite with locally associated copper mineralization between about 281 m and the bottom of the hole at 567.5 m. This sulphide mineralized intersection lies vertically between the projection of the shallow Kilmacoo zones and one of the two deep IP anomalies. The main deep IP anomaly that occurs along the projection of the Kilmacoo zones and the subjacent one, as referred to above, remain untested.

The second hole (TC-1) was designed to test a significant chargeability anomaly at depth beneath the Tigroney-Cronbane open pit mined copper zone. However, this hole was found to significantly deviate from its projected target and as a result this strong IP anomaly remains untested. Other subparallel deep IP anomalies adjacent to the target anomaly to be tested also remain untested. The hole intersected widespread disseminated pyrite and stringer quartz-pyrite mineralization with local associated lead-zinc mineralization—particularly between 236 m and 348 m where numerous sulphidic quartz stringers and sulphide bands, up to 30 cm wide, with sphalerite, galena, pyrite and chalcopyrite mineralization occur. This latter zone of mineralization occurs down dip from the Cronebane copper zone and indicates vertical zonation into lead-zinc sulphide mineralization at depth, which tends to validate the Company’s model for this deposit. The best intercept in this zone assayed 13.83% zinc, 4.46% lead and 0.9 oz silver/tonne over 0.90 m. This mineralized zone occurs well above (i.e. at least 200 m above) the deep chargeable anomalies that remain untested. In addition, there are numerous other IP anomalies at depth and along strike of the known mineralized system at Avoca that warrant drill testing.

As a result of the drilling at Avoca, the prospecting licenses covering the property are in good standing until 2010-2012. Minimal further work is required on one of the licenses in order for both licences to be in good standing until June, 2012. The Company will consider further geophysical work along the Avoca trend prior to resuming drilling in order to better define and prioritize drill targets of interest at depth and along strike.

Mineral Potential

Bayswater believes that there is exceptional opportunity to develop a base-precious metal deposit on the Avoca property. Favourable host lithologies extend the length of the licensed area, a distance of 15 km, and contain several additional base metal workings and prospects along strike from the known deposits.

Of particular note is the Kilmacoo area in East Avoca which has excellent potential for expanding the historical resources of near surface zinc-lead-silver-gold mineralization. The mineralized horizon of the Kilmacoo zone extends over a 2 km strike length that has been drilled to less than 100 metres in most cases. Drilling at Kilmacoo in the 1980's returned several positive drill intersections. In addition to the near surface potential at Kilmacoo, there is good potential for the discovery of a much larger mineralized system at depth, down plunge to the southwest from the central copper-rich zone and adjacent zinc-lead-rich extensions in both East and West Avoca. The presently known mineralized system may be interpreted as the fringe or marginal portion of a larger massive volcanogenic deposit at depth. Such targets have not been drill tested to date.

 

Recent News Releases from Avoca

June 10, 2009	Bayswater Intersects 9.5% Zinc & 3.3% Lead over 1.8 m in Drill Hole at Avoca, Ireland
November 11, 2008	Bayswater Provides Project and Operations Update

 

View the Avoca Photo Gallery.

Last updated June 22, 2009

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