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REGIONAL NEWS - EXPLORATION ROUNDUP
Seabridge Adds Resources at Courageous Lake
Seabridge Gold reports that an updated mineral resource model for its 100%- owned Courageous Lake project in Canada's Northwest Territories has increased the project's measured and indicated gold resources by 18% to near- ly 8 million oz. The new model includes data from the 52 diamond core explo- ration holes drilled in 2011 totaling approximately 15,000 m. The model incorporates data from 589 holes drilled by Seabridge, Noranda and Placer Dome, totaling approximately 169,000 meters. About 122,260 m of the total have been assayed for gold, 53% by Seabridge. Seabridge Gold President and CEO Rudi Fronk said, "The focus of the 2011 drilling program was to upgrade inferred resources within the confines of the open pit defined in the 2011 preliminary eco- nomic assessment. The efficiency of our drill program and the predictability of our 2010 model proved to be exemplary. We converted nearly 1.2 million oz of previ- ously disclosed inferred resources to measured and indicated in last year's exploration program at an expenditure of approximately $6 million, or about $5/oz. All but one of the 52 exploration holes drilled in 2011 intercepted mineraliza- tion above the cut-off grade. New mine plans will now be generated from this updated resource model in anticipation of being able to report the project's first proven and probable reserves in the prefeasibility study scheduled for com- pletion in May."
Gold mineralization within the Courageous Lake deposit is hosted in the upper part of an assemblage of Archean- age felsic pyroclastic rocks just below a transition zone to sedimentary rocks. The cut-off grade for resource tabulation was set at 0.83 g/mt, consistent with the cut- off grade used for previous Courageous Lake resource estimates (2007 and 2010). The cut-off grade used in the 2011 preliminary economic assessment was 0.67 g/mt, based on a gold price of $990/oz. It is likely the cut-off grade that will be used in the 2012 prefeasibility study will be lower than 0.67 g/mt due to higher gold prices. (
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Exploration Briefs Auzex Resources and GGG Resources have completed the Phase II infill drill program at their joint venture Bullabulling gold pro- ject near Kalgoorlie in the eastern gold- fields of Western Australia. Resource esti- mation work was under way in early January 2012 and will be completed once all the assay results are received. Bullabulling has been previously mined, producing about 371,000 oz of gold in the 1990s. The Phase II drill program focused on infilling the areas between the existing Phoenix and Bonecrusher pits at a drill spacing that will allow a substantial portion of the 1.9 million oz of inferred resources to be reclassified as indicated. The current JORC-compliant mineral resource is 78.8 million mt, grading 1.03 g/mt gold (2.60 million oz contained gold) at a 0.5 g/mt gold cut off, of which 711,000 oz are indicated. Drilling will now focus on exploration at the Gibraltar resource and along strike to the south along the Bullabulling Trend, with the aim of discovering additional near- surface mineralization. ( and
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Orezone Gold reports further positive oxide and sulphide drill results from an ongoing 170,000-m infill and expansion drill pro- gram at its 100%-owned Bombore gold project in Burkina Faso. Results include 264 reverse circulation holes (16,508 m) and 105 diamond drill holes (14,423 m) from the southern and northern portions of the 11-km-long Bombore resource. The results from the near surface oxide zone, both within and outside the pit shells that constrain the 2010 resource, indicate that a significant expansion and upgrade of the oxide resources should be expected. As a result of new mineralization out- side of the previous pit shells, the original 170,000-m drill program has been expanded to 215,000 m, with the addition of 30,000 m of reverse circulation and 15,000 m of core drilling. Drilling is expected to be completed during the first quarter of 2012, with a full NI 43-101 compliant resource update scheduled for release at the end of the second quarter. Further expansion drilling will continue through the balance of 2012.
Orezone has completed construction of an on-site sample-prep lab facility that should be fully commissioned during the first quarter of 2012. (www.orezone.com)
Solitario Exploration & Royalty has announced high-grade drill results from its Bongará joint venture project with Votor- antim in Peru. Included are intersections of 26.85 m grading 13.45% combined lead and zinc and 32.1 m grading 11.4% combined lead and zinc. Votorantim fund- ed and managed the 2011 Bongará drilling program.
The Bongará project hosts the high- grade Florida Canyon zinc deposit, where zinc mineralization has been intersected over a 4-km2 area. The deposit is open in all directions. Solitario has received assay results from 18 surface drill holes and 5 underground drill holes, with assays from many additional holes pending. During 2011, Votorantim completed 590 m of underground tunneling and developed eight underground drill stations at Bongará. Approximately 14,500 m of drilling are planned from these stations over the next several months. As of early January 2012, about 6,000 m of under- ground drilling had been completed. (
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Northern Freegold Resources has reported the first NI 43-101 compliant resource esti- mate for the Revenue deposit at its Freegold Mountain gold-copper project in the Yukon, Canada, about 200 km northwest of Whitehorse. The inferred resource totals 101 million mt of mineralized material con- taining 1.1 million oz of gold, 10.2 million oz of silver, 287 million lb of copper, and 90 million lb of molybdenum at grades of 0.34 g/mt gold, 3.14 g/mt silver, 0.13% copper and 0.04% molybdenum. The de- posit remains open laterally and at depth. The Revenue mineral resource estimate is based on 54 drill holes (10,582 m) and 5,997 assay values collected through 2011. The Freegold Mountain project is located in the Tintina gold belt, home to Kinross Gold's Fort Knox mine, Sumi- tomo's Pogo mine and International Tower Hill's Livengood project. (
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