VANCOUVER (miningweekly.com) – Junior explorer Canada Strategic Metals has acquired three new high-potential properties named Annabelle, Blanche and Charles, covering large greenstone belt districts on the Eastmain and La Grande volcanic belts, in the James Bay area of Quebec.

The ground acquired covers more than 75 km² of the volcano-sedimentary contact along with the existing infrastructure, including roads, power lines and airports, on the geological trend of several new discoveries and deposits such as Sirios Resources’ Chechoo project, Eastmain Resources’ Eau Claire project, Osisko Mining’s Coulon project, Hinterland Metals’ La Grande Sud project and Goldcorp’s Éléonore mine.

"We are very pleased with these new acquisitions, and we will be more active than ever this summer exploring this new ground and giving to this under-explored area additional discovery potential," president and CEO Jean-François Meilleur commented in a press release.

The three new properties host known gold showings, but work has been limited owing to the unfavourable economic climate of the past few years. The area is underexplored, with good potential related to the greenstone belt geological settings, the company advised.

The Annabelle property covers the volcano-sedimentary sequences and intrusions of the Opinaca subprovince, while the two properties in the north, Blanche and Charles, cover the volcanic-sedimentary rocks of the La Grande subprovince.

Canada Strategic Metals believes the three newly acquired properties to have strong gold potential, with several known showings found on properties about 5 km south owned by Azimuth/Soquem and Osisko.

The Annabelle property, which covers 183 km², lies about 40 km west of the multimillion-ounce Éléonore gold mine. The three properties comprise 664 claims covering 345 km².

The claims are being processed by the Quebec Ministry of Energy and Natural Resources and will soon be registered and 100% owned by Canada Strategic Metals. The company said its geology team is currently in the process of compiling all the available data in preparation for the summer exploration season.