VANCOUVER, British Columbia,
Oct. 9, 2012 /PRNewswire/
-- Lori McClenahan, President of St. Elias Mines Ltd. (SLI -
TSX.V) (Frankfurt Exchange: EKL) (U.S. Clearing Symbol: SELSF) and
Intigold Mines Ltd. (IGD - TSX.V) provides the following update
with respect to the Cueva Blanca gold property located in northwest
Peru. The property is owned 100% by St. Elias Mines Ltd ("St.
Elias"). Intigold Mines Ltd. ("Intigold") has an option to
acquire a 60% interest in the property.
As previously reported, St. Elias and Intigold have initiated
field studies in the Cueva Blanca area in preparation for diamond
drilling. This work has primarily consisted of community
relations activities to re-establish the strong community
connection (participation and support) that St. Elias enjoyed
during its previous exploration programs at Cueva Blanca.
Other activities include data compilation and
re-interpretation as well as other required preparatory
studies. At this time, it is anticipated that very little
fieldwork will be required prior to mobilizing drilling equipment
and crews to the site. The initial drilling targets include
the Cruz Vein, the Cruz breccia bodies and a stratiform silicified
zone that has anomalous bismuth-mercury geochemistry. The
economic targets at the Cueva Blanca Property are gold and
silver.
The first phase drilling program is budgeted at $2.5-million. This program will consist of
approximately 10,000 metres of drilling. The primary target
of the drill program will be the gold-silver-bearing Cruz Vein
System. The target areas are along strike and downdip from
the previously drilled area of the vein. Infill and
confirmation holes will also be completed in certain sections of
the previously drilled areas of the vein system. In these
areas, detailed information is lacking because rough terrain
prevented the construction of drill platforms at the desired
50-metre spacing along strike. The planned program will
utilize man-portable drills that can be sited almost anywhere,
whereas all previous drilling was done with a Longyear LF-70
skid-mounted drill that required road access.
Cueva Blanca Property Agreement
The Company and Intigold have entered into an agreement whereby
St. Elias and Intigold have agreed to amend certain terms of the
option agreement whereby St. Elias granted to Intigold an option to
earn a 60% interest in the Cueva Blanca Property (refer to news
release dated May 9, 2011 for details
regarding the option agreement). The agreement has been
amended to remove the retention of a 1.5 % net smelter return
royalty and to provide for Intigold to earn an option to acquire a
60% working interest with St. Elias retaining a 40% working
interest. All other terms remain the same. Intigold can
acquire a 60% working interest from St. Elias in consideration of
Intigold making cash payments of $200,000 to St. Elias over a two-year period,
issuing one million common shares in the capital of Intigold to St.
Elias and incurring $1.5-million in
exploration expenditures on the property over a three-year
period.
Cueva Blanca Property
The Property covers approximately 5,800 hectares (58 square
kilometres) and is located in the Lambayeque department in
northwestern Peru, within the
northern Peru Miocene metallogenic belt. This belt is defined
by a large number of world-class gold and copper-gold deposits of
similar age (five million to 25 million years) including Yanacocha,
Lagunas Norte and Pierina. Also of great importance are world-class
copper-gold porphyry deposits, such as Rio
Blanco, Canariaco, La Granja, Cerro
Corona, Minas Conga-Galeno-Michiqillay, Magistral and
Antamina. The giant gold deposits and the Cu-Au porphyries often
occur in clusters (for example,
Yanacocha-Conga-Galeno-Michiqillay). Discrete vein- and
breccia-hosted deposits of gold and polymetallic mineralization
occur adjacent to some copper porphyry deposits.
The Cueva Blanca property is bordered to the south and southeast
by mineral concessions of Vale SA, and Barrick Gold holds extensive mineral concessions
four kilometres to the north.
The Property lies within the northern member of a pair of
profound east-west tectonic warps that cross northern Peru. These flexures are marked by an abrupt
change in the direction of the regional geological trend from
northwest to east-west. Within the southernmost of these tectonic
features are the multimillion-ounce Yanacocha gold mine and
numerous Cu-Au porphyry deposits. Both the northern and southern
structures are on the order of 60 to 80 kilometres wide; they
extend right across the Andes from the Pacific Ocean to the Amazon
River basin.
The locations of the giant Yanacocha gold mine and other gold
deposits and Cu-Au porphyries of the Cajamarca district may be
controlled or at least influenced by east to northeast structures
within the large-scale southern tectonic flexure. The Cueva
Blanca Property, as well as the Canariaco and Rio Blanco Cu-Au
porphyries and gold prospects such as Las Huaquillas (Inca One) and
Rio Tabaconas (Golden Alliance)
appear to be within the northern tectonic flexure.
An important feature of the Cueva Blanca Property is the Cruz
gold/silver epithermal vein system. Some examples of
exceptional classic epithermal deposits with geologic
characteristics broadly similar to the Cruz vein system are Kupol
(Russia), El Penon (Chile), and Tayoltita, Guanajuato and Pachuca (Mexico).
Exploration History
Exploration at Cueva Blanca followed a classic pattern:
acquisition based on geologic reasoning, property-wide
prospecting and subsequent discovery of precious metal showings,
detailed surface exploration of these showings and other
mineralized zones followed by an initial exploratory diamond
drilling program. The historic drill assays and the
analytical results from the surface geochemical samples provide an
indication of the gold-silver potential of the property and warrant
continuing exploration.
The previously announced exploration and confirmation work
program that was conducted in 2011 consisted of sampling of
outcrops and trenches at the Cruz Vein System. Fire assays of
irregularly spaced samples along a strike length of 850 metres
returned a length-weighted average grade of 2.84 grams per tonne
(g/t) gold across an average width of 4.3 metres. These
results are not representative of the true grade, width or length
of the vein system, because the sample locations were restricted to
natural outcrops and trenches excavated in areas of shallow
overburden, at arbitrary points along an 850-metre strike interval
of the vein system. However, the results are consistent with
sample results from earlier programs in the same area, and at the
least they provide an incomplete and preliminary indication of the
dimensions and grades of the exposed sections of the vein
system.
Historic exploration work on the Cruz Vein System included 91
trenches and 18 drill holes totalling 1,860 metres. The
drilling tested a 300-metre segment of the vein system, named "Zone
1". This work established that the Cruz quartz veins have
consistently anomalous gold and silver grades, and that the vein
system appears to be a classic epithermal gold-silver deposit. The
highlights of the 1997 Cruz Vein drill program include core
intervals (not true widths) of six metres of 2.31 grams per tonne
("g/t Au") in DDH CB-01, six metres of 2.96 g/t Au in DDH CB-03
(including 1.75 metres of 7.45 g/t Au), 1.5 metres of 22.68 g/t Au
in DDH CB-5, 9.5 metres of 8.09 g/t Au in CB-17 (including 1.5
metres of 35.84 g/t Au), and 10.8 metres of 2.41 g/t Au and 1.2
metres of 6.95 g/t Au in DDH CB-22. Every one of the
twenty-two historic diamond drill holes intersected the Cruz vein
system, but three of the 22 holes, which were adjacent step-out
holes (DDH CB-8, CB-10 and CB-12) within a 100-metre long segment
of the vein system, intersected sheeted veins with higher than
normal calcite content. These calcite-dominant veins reported
lower-than average gold grades. Gold assays from the other
nineteen higher-grade drill holes ranged from 0.9 g/t Au to 35.84
g/t over core lengths of 0.95 metres to 10.8 metres.
The quartz-carbonate Cruz veins contain virtually no sulphides;
the veins outcrop strongly along strike in three main multi-vein
sheeted zones (Zones 1, 2 and 3). All of these sheeted vein
zones are exposed on low ridges along the trace of the vein system,
and each exposure is approximately 300 metres long. The
sheeted veins can be traced from outcrop to outcrop through the
intervening stream gullies but they are poorly exposed in the low
ground. The vein system as a whole outcrops sporadically
along strike to the southeast and northwest of the drilled area for
a distance of approximately three kilometres. The historic
exploratory drilling only tested a 300-m segment of the vein system
(Zone 1) to true depths of 40 metres to 100 metres, and only five
of the 22 holes were drilled as deep as 100 metres (true depth, not
hole length). All five of these deeper holes intersected the
Cruz vein system.
While the companies have no reason to doubt the accuracy of the
historic results, the existing data should not be relied upon until
the Companies' own exploration work confirms that the data meet
National Instrument 43-101 standards for disclosure. Historic
results and the work that generated them predate the enactment of
National Instrument 43-101, and may not meet the requirements of
that policy.
Qualified Person
The technical content of this news release has been verified by
George Sivertz, P.Geo, a Canadian
geologist with extensive experience in Peru who is a qualified person as defined in
National Instrument 43-101, standards of disclosure for mineral
projects.
"Intigold and St. Elias are extremely pleased with the
continuing advancement of the Cueva Blanca Property, which is known
to host gold-silver mineralization in epithermal vein systems,"
states Lori McClenahan, President
and Chief Executive Officer.
For additional information about Intigold Mines Ltd. and its
projects, please visit us at www.intigold.com or call
1-888-895-5522 (toll free US and Canada). For information about St. Elias
Mines Ltd. visit www.steliasmines.com or call 1-888-895-5522 (toll
free US and Canada).
ST. ELIAS MINES LTD. & INTIGOLD MINES LTD.
(Signed "Lori
McClenahan")
Lori McClenahan,
President
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation
Services Provider (as that term is defined in policies of the TSX
Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or
accuracy of this release.
This News Release may contain forward-looking statements
including, but not limited to, comments regarding the timing and
content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations,
potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking
statements address future events and conditions and therefore
involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ
materially from those currently anticipated in such
statements.
St. Elias
Mines Ltd.
|
Intigold
Mines Ltd.
|
Suite 304
– 700 West Pender Street,
|
Suite 304
– 700 West Pender Street,
|
Vancouver,
British Columbia
|
Vancouver,
British Columbia
|
Canada V6C 1G8
|
Canada V6C 1G8
|
|
|
Telephone: (604) 669-4677
|
Telephone: (604) 669-4677
|
Facsimile:
(604) 669-9626
|
Facsimile: (604) 669-9626
|
Toll
Free: (888) 895-5522
|
Toll
Free: (888) 895-5522
|
Website: www.steliasmines.com
|
Website: www.intigold.com
|
Trading
Symbol: TSX-SLI
|
Trading
Symbol: TSX-IGD
|
SOURCE St. Elias Mines Ltd.; Intigold Mines Ltd.