Mantle runs last drill rig at Akie
2007-07-26 12:15 ET - News Release
Mr. Peeyush Varshney reports
AKIE PROJECT - EXPLORATION UPDATE
Mantle Resources Inc. has provided a progress report on its exploration activities on the Akie zinc-lead property and other properties in the immediate vicinity, located in northeastern British Columbia, approximately 260 kilometres north-northwest of the town of Mackenzie.
Diamond drilling
The third of three drill rigs assigned to the Akie property has commenced drilling and is currently probing the South zinc anomaly, located approximately three kilometres south-southeast of the Cardiac Creek zone (CCZ), the primary target area on the Akie property. This previously untested feature is defined by the plus-2,000-part-per-million zinc-in-soil contour, is approximately two kilometres long by 200 to 500 metres wide and encompasses samples that have also yielded anomalous lead values. The anomaly is underlain by folded Gunsteel rocks that are proximal to the contact between the shales of the Gunsteel formation and limestone, limestone breccia, and siltstone of the Road River group, which is identical to the stratigraphic location of the CCZ.
Two other rigs are currently employed on the CCZ to determine the extent and internal continuity of the high-grade zinc-lead mineralization discovered in 2005:
The first rig is drilling a step-out hole (A-07-42), located about 200 metres to the north of hole A-05-32, which encountered a true width of 8.44 metres grading 16.16 per cent zinc and 3.95 per cent lead, and is presently at a depth of 501.7 metres (target at 670 metres).
A second rig is positioned approximately 600 metres to the south, between holes A-05-30 and A-05-33, both strongly mineralized, and has just completed the first (A-07-43) of two infill holes planned from this set-up, intersecting the CCZ at a downhole depth of 535 metres. The next hole with this rig (A-07-45) is designed to pierce the CCZ approximately 80 metres updip from this point. Core from hole A-07-43 is currently being logged and sampled.
Rodren Drilling Ltd. of West St. Paul, Man., is conducting the 2007 drill campaign which is expected to total approximately 15,000 metres.
Regional exploration
Regional exploration activities, comprising prospecting, geologic mapping and sampling, recently commenced within the southern half of the 180-kilometre-long package of company-controlled mineral holdings in the Kechika trough. Initially, these efforts will be focused entirely on the extensive (18,198 hectares), highly prospective properties held under option from Megastar Development Corp. The company can earn an initial 60-per-cent interest in these, all of which encompass shales of the Gunsteel formation and a number of zinc-lead showings, by expending $2.25-million on exploration and development over a three-year period.
Other
The construction of a new campsite to replace the facility established in 2005 is now complete. Discussions and consultations with the Kwadacha and the Tsay Keh Dene First Nation, which were initiated in 2006, are continuing. Environmental baseline studies related to permitting for road construction and establishing underground access for bulk sampling are presently in progress. Samples of mineralized drill core from holes completed in 2006 have been forwarded to SGS Mineral Services, Lakefield, Ont., for metallurgical testing to expand upon that carried out in 2006.
About the Akie property
The Akie zinc-lead property is situated within the southernmost part (Kechika trough) of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of Sedex zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.
Drilling on the Akie property by Inmet Mining Corp. during the period 1994 to 1996 and Mantle in 2005 and 2006 has identified a significant body of baritic Sedex mineralization (Cardiac Creek zone) with an average thickness of greater than 12 metres and an average zinc-plus-lead content in excess of 10 per cent. The deposit is hosted by variably siliceous, fine-grained clastic rocks of the middle to late Devonian Gunsteel formation.
Two similar deposits, Cirque and South Cirque, located about 20 kilometres northwest of Akie and owned by Teck Cominco and Korea Zinc, are also hosted by Gunsteel rocks and have a combined geologic inventory in excess of 50 million tonnes averaging approximately 10 per cent combined zinc plus lead.
Qualified person
John R. Fraser, PGeo (British Columbia) is the qualified person for the company, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.
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