News, drilling to start in a couple of daysRampart Commences Split Rapids Area Drill Program
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(CCNMatthews - Jan. 26, 2007) - Hikmet Akin, President of Rampart Ventures Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:RPT) is pleased to announce that the company is commencing its winter drill program on the Split Rapids uranium zone northeast of Thunder Bay, Ontario. Mobilization of the drill and camp is now under way for the 2,500 metre drilling program, designed to test for depth extensions of the mineralization cut by hole BS - 05 - 30, which intersected 2.99% U3O8 over a core length of 1.5 metres.
As reported in the news release of January 8th, 2007, the Split Rapids mineralization has been re-evaluated as possibly being the top of a sub-unconformity, basement-hosted uranium deposit. The first hole, which is expected to be collared within the next few days, will test the target area at a vertical depth of approximately 200 metres. None of the previous holes drilled in the area in 2005 tested below a vertical depth of 90 metres.
All of the uranium mineralization exposed by stripping and cut by drill holes in the Split Rapids area is closely associated with magnetite iron formations in the Archean basement rocks. The intersection in hole BS - 05 - 30 consisted of pervasive and fracture-hosted pitchblende immediately adjacent to a fault that offsets the main iron formation horizon by approximately 50 metres. The combination of favourable basement lithology and cross-cutting structures represents an ideal locus for basement-hosted sub-unconformity uranium mineralization.
The Split Rapids area is part of Rampart's extensive Sibley basin uranium project, which is based on geological parallels with the uranium-rich Athabasca basin of Saskatchewan. Earlier exploration in the Athabasca basin was focussed almost entirely on looking for uranium at or above the unconformity where basin sediments rest on older basement rocks. There is, however, a growing appreciation of the potential for basement-hosted uranium, which can extend for hundreds of metres below the unconformity. And in the Kombolgie basin, Northern Territories, Australia, the giant uranium orebodies such as Jabiluka and Ranger lie almost entirely in basement rocks.
Technical Information in this news release has been prepared by Colin Bowdidge, Ph.D., P.Geo., a Qualified Person as defined in NI 43-101, and vice president exploration for Rampart.
Hikmet Akin, President
Rampart Ventures Ltd.