Location

The Lalande property is located on the North Shore region in north-eastern Quebec, 70 kilometres east of Natashquan and 12 km northwest of the town of La Romaine. The all-season road (#138) from Sept-Iles to La Romaine, presently under construction, is now past Natashquan and should be completed to La Romaine (and close to the property) in 2016 (figure 1).

The town of La Romaine (Unamen Shipu, in Innu), with a population of more than 1,000, has both airport and port facilities (figure 2 and 3). Access to the town of La Romaine is relatively easy as a result of daily flight service from Sept-Iles or by the Relais Nordik ferry which serves all coastal towns in the area.

The Lalande property consists of 224 map designated claims covering 12,320 hectares (123.2 km2). It extends on twenty kilometres in east-west direction and nine kilometres on north-south direction. Of the 224 claims, Ditem has a 100% interest in 162 claims. On the remaining 62 claims, there is a 2% NSR in favour of a group of two prospectors and become 100% Ditem shares only in November 2013 (see Ditem Press release dated November 16th 2011). The location of the 62 claims is indicated in yellow in the inset map (figure 2).

Previous work

The first geological surveys realized in the North Shore region (12K NTS sheet) were carried out by Claveau (1950), Bassaget (1970), Sharma (1973) and Bourne and al. (1978). In 1968, Canadian Aero completed an airborne radiometric survey for Rarworth Exploration Ltd in the sector of the Lalande property. Numerous radiometric anomalies were identified during this survey.

In 1987 and 1988, SOQUEM completed an exploration program with sampling and analysis within a large rare earth element-bearing zone (1000 x 600 m) located near the Lac Couillard, and around a monazite-rich trench (Lac Couillard zone 3A) located 5 km north-east from the first zone.

In 1988, SOQUEM acquired 60 claims (960 hectares) targeting the Lac Couillard rare earth element-bearing zone. Two rare earth showings (zone 1: 100m x 50m; zone 2: 100 m x 30m) were identified within the Lac Couillard anomalous zones, with grades up to 1.4% for La, Ce, and Y. Grades up to 3.7% of total rare earth oxides (TREO) were obtained in one sample in the zone 1.

In 1988 and 1989, the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources undertook  a lake sediment survey in the North Shore region with samples at every 13 kilometers. In 2009, the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources reanalyzed the 1989 samples.  Lanthanum (La) grades higher than 100 ppm were obtained in the Lac Couillard showing area. These lanthanum anomalies were associated with thorium and cerium concentration.

Geology (and model type)

The Lalande property is mainly underlain by pinwarian (1.5 Ga) calc-alkaline granitic to granodioritic gneisses of the Aguanish Complex. This complex hosts upper amphibolite to granulite-facies metamorphosed supracrustal belt with pinwarian felsic-dominated volcanic centers, metasediments including meta-arenite and discrete units of marble, calc-silicate rocks and aluminous gneiss, and a composite amphibolite unit (Corriveau et Bonnet, 2005).

The felsic-dominated volcanic centres comprise mainly rhyolitic to dacitic metavolcaniclastic rocks showing well-preserved textures of in-situ fragmentation, and grey and pink, massive to layered quartzofeldspathic gneisses interpreted as tuffs.

In the La Romaine sector, the supracrustal rocks host a cupriferous hydrothermal system with various alteration zones including quartz–muscovite–sillimanite–iron oxide nodules and veins within quartzofeldspathic gneiss; migmatized, aluminous gneiss well-preserved volcanic fragments; discontinuous trains of quartz–cordierite material within quartzofeldspathic gneiss, and a heterogeneous layered package of ironstone, carbonate and calc-silicate rock, garnetite, diopsidite, epidosite closely associated with iron-oxide and copper-sulphide precipitation (Bonnet et al., 2005).

2011 Ditem Exploration Program

Ditem conducted an exploration program from July 19th 2011 to August 10th 2011 consisting of ground radiometric survey, prospecting, geological mapping and rock sampling. The main objective of the exploration program was to verify the association of airborne radiometric anomalies and rare earth mineralized zones and to confirm rare earth mineralization identified on previous work.

The 2011 exploration program was undergone in four different sectors (figure 3): Zone A (Lalande Centre), Zone B (Lalande North-East), Zone C (Lalande South-West) and Zone D (Lalande North-West). A total of 173 rock samples (20 cm x 20 cm x 5 cm) from the four sectors (Zones A to D) were analysed and returned grades of up to 6.73% of total rare earth oxides (TREO) including yttrium oxide.

Of the 173 samples, 77 were taken in the central section (Zone A) of the property where five mineralized surface showings with a cut-off of 1.0% TREO were identified (figure 4).

From these five showings, two major surface showings (A1 and A2) measuring approximately 350m x 100 m and 250m x 80m and characterized by high grades of up to 5.6% and 6.13% TREO were recognized. Although these two surface showings are separated by overburden, they may well constitute one larger zone.

The other surface showings (A3 to A5) located in the same sector (Zone A) have smaller dimension (<2000m2) with grades of up to 2.39% and 6.73% TREO but could extend laterally and in to depth.

The analytical results from rock samples returned significant marketable light and heavy rare earth oxides (LHREO) with grades of up to 13840 ppm (1.4%) La2O3, 3919 ppm (0.4%) Pr2O3, 13875 ppm (1.4%) Nd2O3, 1423 ppm (0.14%) Dy2O3, 18 ppm (0.002%) Eu2O3, 177 ppm (0.02%) Tb2O3 and 10515 ppm (1.05%) Y2O3.

Winter Drill Program 2012: Waiting For Grades

The initial drill program has established that the host rock, a pink pegmatite, extends from surface or near surface to depth with an apparent thickness of up to 48 m. The pegmatite layer appears to underlie the A1 zone and probably extends northwards to include the A2 zone. The drill program consisted of 5 holes for a total length of 476 m and targeted the A1 zone only (Figure 5).

Now that the host rock has been found to be present at depth, the Company plans to undertake an important and very substantial drill program in early June to delineate and explore the host rock in all directions, if warranted by core analyses.

Figure 5 – Location of the five drill holes in the A1 Zone.