Endomines has commenced an extensive and systematically planned exploration project on the Karelian Gold Line in Eastern Finland, where the Company holds exclusive exploration rights for the 40-kilometer-long, gold prospective greenstone belt. Endomines intends to conduct the exploration project over a period of several years.
The exploration plan for 2018 comprises 5,000 meters of surface diamond drilling, 3,500 base of till (BOT) samples, and geophysics covering an induced polarization (IP) survey, gravimetric ground survey and a drone magnetic survey. In addition, further information will be obtained from the hyperspectral scanning project, which is being conducted with the Geological Survey of Finland (GTK) and analyses previously taken drill cores from the Karelian Gold Line.
The gold mining history along the Karelian Gold Line goes back to the mid 1980s when the exploration by GTK led to the discovery of auriferous quartz-calcite veins. Some significant geochemical gold and arsenic anomalies in the southern part of the Karelian Gold Line were also found. The mining and technology company Outokumpu’s geologists noticed simultaneously some significant gold contents relating to a copper deposit in Rämepuro, south of Pampalo. The geological and structural environment in the Ilomantsi area is similar to other well-known Archaean gold fields like the Australian Kalgoorlie and Canadian Timmins.
The Ministry of Trade and Industry (MIT) sold the claim rights of the southern part of the Karelian Gold Line, including Pampalo, to Outokumpu Mining in 1994 after a competitive bidding process. Later they were transferred to Polar Mining Oy, a subsidiary of Australian Dragon Mining NL. All the existing mining licenses and claims, including all exploration results, along the Karelian Gold Line’s southern part were in October 2006 transferred to Endomines, which already in 1996 had acquired the northern claim areas from MIT.
Endomines holds 6 mining concessions (418.4 ha), 64 claims (5073.4 ha) and 17 exploration permits (3995.1 ha) along the Karelian Gold Line. Endomines also has an exploration reservation (296.57 km2) covering the immediate surroundings of the Karelian Gold Line.
The Pampalo deposit is covered by a mining concession and it is currently in production by Endomines. The Rämepuro deposit, also covered by a mining concession, was in production from 2014 to 2016 by Endomines. Furthermore, Endomines has completed a pilot plant processing test for the Hosko deposit, similarly covered by a mining concession.
- Located in the easternmost part of Finland in Ilomantsi
- A part of an almost 300-kilometer-long Ilomantsi-Kostamuksha greenstone belt
- Late Archean – 2750 million years old
- One of the best-preserved Archean supracrustal sequences in Finland
- Dominated by metasediments
- Lesser amounts of komatiites, tholeiitic basalts and calc-alkaline rocks
- All above-mentioned rocks are intruded by typical Archean tonalite-trondhjemite-granodiorite series rocks
- Metamorphosed in upper greenschist – lower amphibolite conditions
- Gold mineralizations occur with sulphide disseminations in quartz-carbonate veins and shear zones in hydrothermally altered tonalites, quartz-feldspar porphyry dykes, quartz-tourmaline veins and mica schists
- Regional Geology of the Ilomantsi-Kostamuksha greenstone belt (Hattu Schist Belt).
