Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

New gold ore deposits are increasingly hard to find for mining companies such as Lake Shore Goldx000D
Corporation (a wholly owned subsidiary of Tahoe Canada / Tahoe Resources Inc.) in Timmins, Ontario. Keyx000D
parameters in gold exploration are to understand their relationship to geological processes and obtain precisex000D
knowledge of the deposits' ages. Gold deposits are challenging to age date because they may be formed laterx000D
than the host intrusions and the origin of the auriferous fluids can be associated with the intrusion itself,x000D
metamorphism or from deeper parts of the crust or mantle. Moreover, elements used for long-lived radioactivex000D
decay systems do not partition well into gold. Neighbouring minerals are not always reliable either as they mayx000D
have crystallized in the presence of different fluids or are minerals pre-dating the mineralization itself. As ax000D
consequence, at the West Timmins mine (TWM), there is currently no chronology established for goldx000D
mineralization. Only the age of the host rocks of the veins are available (Barrie, 1990) and may pre-datex000D
mineralization by tens of million years. Gold is found in veins next to minerals such as scheelite (CaWO4) andx000D
titanite (CaTiSiO5) at TWM. Following a successful visit of Lake Shore in 2016 using a NSERC Connectx000D
grant, when we discussed with the company what geochemical and geochronological tools we can use forx000D
analyzing scheelite, we propose here to constrain the source of metals, geological processes associated with thex000D
formation of gold veins, and determine their radiometric ages. Knowing when and how many events werex000D
responsible for gold mineralization is critical to build a "footprint" of the geological processes responsible forx000D
gold deposition in Timmins. Our results will provide constraints on potentially areas of future exploration forx000D
Lake Shore Gold Corporation.