VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, Sep 4, 2003 (CCNMatthews via COMTEX) --
Pillar Resources Inc. ('Pillar') and Radius Exploration Ltd. ('Radius') are pleased announce the start of the second phase of drilling at the Marimba joint venture project in eastern Guatemala, and additional trench results from the Banderas project.
Marimba Project
Drilling at Marimba is due to start on Monday, September 8th, and will focus on the Cerro T and Lantiquin projects which were first drilled by Pillar earlier this year.
At Cerro T, the drill program has been designed to outline a near surface, heap leachable oxide gold resource and to extend the known strike length of the gold mineralization further to the east.
Pillar's first-phase drilling at Cerro T cut gold-bearing brecciated and silicified limestones over a 700m strike length. Grades ranged from 1.3 g/t Au over 22.9m to 2.6 g/t Au over 8.3m, and preliminary metallurgical tests indicated that the mineralization will be readily amenable to heap leaching (see June 16th and July 7th press releases).
At Lantiquin, the second-phase program will test the strike and dip extension of gold mineralization within a 40 m wide shear zone. Pillar's first-phase drilling returned intersections of +1 g/t Au over widths of up to 10m associated with quartz-carbonate stockworking in sheared greenstones. The drilling tested a 200m strike length, and indicated that gold grades may be increasing with depth (June 16th release).
Banderas Project
Preliminary gold assays have been received for 8 new trenches at Banderas which targeted the northern extension of the M28 zone, and the Pyramid Hill zone, a parallel structure roughly 500 m west of the M28 zone.
Previous trenching intersected mineralized pyritic silicified breccias, which are now known to occur in the hangingwall and/or footwall of the main vein structures at Banderas. The latest trenches tested the veins themselves to follow up higher grade float and outcrop samples from previous work.
At Pyramid Hill, trenching exposed quartz veins 1-2m wide and silicified breccias up to 6m wide over 600m strike length of the zone. The best result was 6.95 g/t Au over 4.8m from vein and breccia material in trench PHT003, which included 10.3 g/t Au over 2.1m from the quartz vein itself.
Trench M28T012, across the original M28 vein discovery, averaged 12 g/t Au + 269 g/t Ag over 7m (15.8 g/t gold equivalent at 70:1 Ag:Au). This interval included a 1m sample which returned 41 g/t Au and 838 g/t Ag and confirms the results of a previous sample from M28 which ran 28 g/t Au over 1.5m. Results from trenches testing the northern extension of the M28 zone are pending.
Background Information
Pillar is earning a 60% interest in both the Marimba and Holly/Banderas projects from Radius Explorations Ltd. To exercise the Marimba option, Pillar must spend CAD$2.5-million in exploration expenditures on the Project by October, 2005. To exercise the Holly/Banderas option, Pillar must spend CAD$4.0-million in exploration expenditures on the Project over three years.
Pillar has agreed to honour a right of first refusal held by Gold Fields Exploration B.V. pursuant to a prior agreement between Radius and Gold Fields, which requires that if Pillar proposes to transfer any of its interest in the Marimba or Banderas projects to a third party, it must first offer to transfer such interest to Gold Fields.
Qualified Persons |
