The project lies within the Kitami mining region along the southern portion of the N-S trending Monbetsu-Rubeshibe graben zone, which hosts numerous epithermal mineral occurrences, historical mines and workings dating from the early 1900’s.

The Fujimi mine produced small amounts of gold and silver from 50 tonnes of ore mined at 15 g/t Au and 20 g/t Au from underground lodes during 1935-39 and 30 tonnes of ore mined at 1-2 g/t Au from open-pits in 1980¹. As part of a regional metallogenic study, the MMAJ and Geological Survey of Japan (GSJ) undertook regional gravity surveys in the area.

Exploration and small-scale underground development was conducted by local people from 1949 within the Fujimi mine area in the western part of the project. Historical maps of geology and this development contain limited information but indicate the veins host significant intervals of mineralization, including 2 m @ 31.7 g/t Au & 70 g/t Ag, and 3 m @ 11.3 g/t Au & 36 g/t Ag¹. A total of 724 m of drift development and 718 m of cross-cuts were completed in an underground adit at 780 m RL, advanced by local miners on a vein zone at the No. 2 Tateushi mine in the northeastern part of the project. In this zone, more than six sub-parallel quartz veins were located with vein thicknesses ranging from 0.15 to 0.70 m wide. Twenty samples collected from these veins returned trace gold values, except for one sample, that yield 12 g/t gold and 10.6 g/t Ag across a 0.3 m vein width¹. The Fujimi mercury mine lies about one kilometre to the west of the tenement.

The Onne Project contains the historic Onne gold-silver mine and the Niko mercury mine. Production from Onne is not well documented but includes 75 tonnes of ore at 5 g/t Au and 40 g/t Ag in 1936 and 40 tonnes of ore at 15 g/t Au in 1938¹. At Niko, disseminated cinnabar was mined from an acid altered rhyolite intrusion. Diamond drilling by the MMAJ in 1989-91 beneath the Oketo mercury mine, located two kilometres south of the Onne Project, intersected narrow, weakly mineralized quartz veins containing fine-grained quartz fill including chalcedony and adularia.