The Courageous Lake Deposit is an example of syn-volcanic gold mineralisation of Archean age. It is hosted within the Courageous Lake Greenstone Belt (CLGB), 240 kilometers Northwest of Yellowknife within the Slave Archean provence, Northwest Territories, Canada (figure 1). Valor Gold Corp have defined a measured and indicated mineral resource of 145 million tonnes grading 2.36 grams per tonne Au totaling 10.9 Moz and an inferred resource of 40 million tonnes grading 2.52 grams per tonne Au totaling a further 3.3 Moz. The deposit is hosted within a Banting Group rhyodacite dome complex with lithofacies varying from ash to bomb tuff. Volcanics are overlain by Burwash Group sediments 100m, stratigraphically above the top of the deposit. Broad silica and sericite alteration assemblages envelope mineralisation. Gold is refractory and is within arsenopyrite in 13 stratabound domains and rarely as visible gold.

As a gold deposit within an Archean greenstone belt, Courageous Lake has traditionally been classified as an orogenic system, Padgham and Fyson (1986) classified mineral deposits along the belt to be shear hosted. It’s presence within the Slave Craton and with temporally analogous host rock and metamorphic history have drawn similarities to the Giant and Con mines in Yellowknife. This paper summarises the geology at FAT and argues that this geology presents a compelling argument for a robust syn-volcanic gold mineralisation event at 2671 Ma.