SAHTU - A large mineral deposit has been discovered 220 km west of Norman Wells on the property of a resource company with prospecting permits for the area.

The NWT Geoscience Office announced last Monday it discovered a "significant" deposit of zinc-lead-copper in the southern tip of the Gwich'in Settlement Area.

Eagle Plains Resources, a Cranbrook, B.C.-based company that discovered Silver in the adjacent Sahtu Dene and Metis Settlement Area in 2007, holds prospecting permits where the most recent deposit was found, according to John Ketchum, senior geologist for the Geoscience Office.

Ketchum said the discovery was found along a regional fault line and if a company were to initiate exploration on the find, it could help give them direction on where to explore.

"(The survey team) looked at 400 metres of the showing, but it could continually go farther than that," Ketchum said. "They were impressed with what they were seeing in terms of metals being visible right in the rock surface.

"Any company exploring for metals in the region could use the fault as a means to determine where the metals might be."

The initial work began a few years ago when a survey team from the office was studying water and sediment samples from the waterways in the area.

"In the initial survey they were collecting water and sediment samples from the rivers in order to see what's coming down the slopes of the mountains," Ketchum said. "If you have a mineral deposit that is exposed it will eventually be eroded into a stream and get the sign something is there.

"A crew from our office went to the watershed that the stream was draining into and just studied the rocks there. That's what led to the discovery of a new mineral showing in that area."

Ketchum said zinc and lead are the primary minerals in the discovery and make up a significant amount of what he believes is contained in the entire deposit.

"We found some trace amounts of some other metals, like uranium, silver, cobalt," he said, adding the likelihood of larger amounts of the trace minerals showing up wouldn't be ruled out, but wasn't likely. "It's likely the deposit is majority lead and zinc."

Ketchum said Eagle Plains Resources was aware of the find, but could only speculate about what it planned to do.

"It's likely they will follow up on it and have a better look at it in the future," he said. "The other possibility is that companies become aware of the information, which includes the company who holds the permit, they may decide to take out additional permits.

"So many things have to come into alignment to make that kind of investment."

Eagle Plains Resources was unavailable for comment at press time.