The Shebandowan property is located approximately 90 km west of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Benton owns a 100% interest in 17 staked claims totaling 209 claim units and has signed an agreement with Trillium North Minerals which grants Benton the exclusive right to earn up to 70% interest in 5 mineral claims totaling 27 units by making various option payments and work commitments.
The Shebandowan project located in the central portion of the Shebandowan greenstone belt and located less than 20 km along strike to the west are the past producing Ardeen and Coldstream gold deposits as well as the Moss Lake gold deposit. The Moss Lake deposit hosts a NI 43-101 compliant resource of 56.1Mt grading 0.92 g/t gold containing approximately 1.51 million ounces of gold. The Coldstream deposit contains a historic resource (non NI 43-101 compliant) of 5.1Mt grading 1.4 g/t gold. Approximately 20 km along strike to the west of the North Shebandowan project sits the Swamp River / Band-Ore gold deposit with a historic resource (non NI 43-101 compliant; Canadian Mines Handbook, 1998-99, p.63) of 998,000T grading 0.12 oz/T gold (approximately 905,000t grading 4.11 g/t) and the Vanguard Copper-Zinc-Gold deposit is situated only 4 km along strike to the east. Historic base metal production from the Shebandowan greenstone belt consisted of of 8.7 million tons grading 2.07% nickel, 1% copper and approximately 3 g/t combined platinum group metals plus gold with current measured and indicated resources (NI 43-101 compliant) totaling 2.58 million tonnes grading 0.91% nickel, 0.62% copper, 1.09 g/t palladium, 0.34 g/t platinum, and 0.23 g/t gold (NAP NR, October 25, 2007).
A till sampling survey covering the Shebandowan greenstone belt was completed by the Ontario Geological Survey (“OGS”) in 2002. The survey identified a 5 km trend of samples containing high counts of pristine gold grains taken on Benton’s newly acquired ground. Other OGS till sampling programs completed in northern Ontario have identified similar areas of anomalous gold grain counts in the samples which have led to significant gold discoveries. The recent gold discovery by Northern Superior Resources Inc and Rainy River Resources Ltd on their TKP joint venture in Northern Ontario and the Rainy River deposit located near Emo, Ontario are two such examples. In addition, historical prospecting has identified high grade copper values with associated highly anomalous gold.
Limited prospecting by Benton personnel has returned assays up to 13.3 g/t gold over a minimum 3km strike length. The mineralization is hosted in a shear zone with intense alteration consisting of iron-carbonate, sericite, chlorite, and silicification (ubiquitous and as veining). Benton has completed an exploration program consisting of grid establishment, ground geophysical surveys (magnetic and induced polarization) and 7 diamond drill holes. The results of the drill program will be released when all assays are received from the lab.
