Financing Completed, Tib Lake Palladium Property Drilling Underway
September 20, 2000: Sudbury, Ontario - Houston Lake Mining Inc.("Houston Lake") is pleased to report that the Company has been oversubscribed on the $40,000 final closing of the $150,000 non-brokered private placement announced July 20, 2000. The final closing will allow an expansion of the planned 1000 metre (3280 foot) drilling program on the Tib Lake Palladium Property which is located in the Lac Des Iles area of Northwestern Ontario. Drilling has commenced and first drill hole of the program has been completed. A total of 47 drill core samples have been sent for assay as of Monday, September 18, 2000.
Houston Lake will issue a total of 375,000 units at a price of $0.40 under the July 20, 2000 Offering Memorandum. Each Unit consists of one Flow-through Common Share and one-half Purchase Warrant. One full warrant can be exercised at $0.50 for a period of eight months. The private placement has a
four month hold period subject to Alberta and Ontario resale restrictions of twelve months and eighteen months respectively. Funds will be expended on the Company’s 100 percent-owned 1632 hectare (4030 acre) Tib Lake Palladium Property. The interest is subject to a 2.5 percent Net Smelter Royalty with a buyback of 1 percent for $1,000,000.
Houston Lake is first recorded company to conduct systematic exploration of the Tib Lake gabbro. Programs of line-cutting, geophysical surveys (magnetic, VLF-EM, and IP), geological mapping, and trenching and stripping have identified 5 major areas for follow up drilling. The current drill campaign targets the Border Zone, an extensive area containing sulphidized heterogenous gabbro and gabbro breccia. This favourable rock unit extends about 2.5 kilometres (1.5 miles) from the Jewelweed palladium occurrence to the Kuhner palladium occurrence. This zone may reach over 500 metres (1640 feet) at its widest extent and is similar to that noted at the Roby Zone of the nearby Lac Des Iles mine of North American Palladium Ltd. ("NAPL"). Sulphide liquation, magma mixing, and volatile flushing are important ore-forming processes identified in platinum-palladium mines elsewhere in the world. These processes have been interpreted within this heterogenous gabbro/gabbro breccia rock unit, attesting to the potential of the Tib Lake property.
The diamond drilling program currently consists of six drill holes totaling approximately 1000 metres (3280 feet) and prospecting. The program will be expanded to include additional drilling, prospecting, geological mapping and sampling. The first drill hole of the program was completed in the vicinity of the Kuhner occurrence, the site of the 1995 drill hole TL95-09 which intersected a core length of 18.47 metres grading 1.68 g/t PGE’s (60.6 feet grading 0.05 oz/t PGE’s). The drill hole intersected the heterogenous gabbro/gabbro breccia rock unit and encountered a major sulphide-bearing pyroxenite rock unit not previously identified at surface. The combination of heterogenous gabbro, gabbronorite and pyroxenite rock units are similar to the geology noted in the vicinity of NAPL’s Roby Zone.
Prospecting, geological mapping and sampling will explore the vicinities of four other IP target areas and seek to confirm the extension of favourable rock units noted on Ontario Geological Survey maps to the east of the Kuhner occurrence. The project is under the supervision of an independent consulting geologist and additional security measures have been implemented to insure the integrity of the drill core samples from drill rig to assay laboratory (Chemex Labs).
Houston Lake is actively exploring for rare metals, platinum group metals and gold in northwestern Ontario. Houston Lake Mining Inc. has a total of 12,762,432 common shares issued and outstanding inclusive of the final closing. The common shares of Houston Lake Mining Inc. trade through the facilities of the Canadian Venture Exchange under the symbol HLM. |
