East Asia to start South Miwah resource drilling iEast Asia to start South Miwah resource drilling in Q2
2010-01-19 15:26 ET - News Release
Mr. Michael Hawkins reports
EAST ASIA MINERALS UPDATES PROGRESS AT ACEH; EXPANDS SOUTH MIWAH BLUFF
East Asia Minerals Corp. reports that NI 43-101 resource estimate drilling at the Miwah Main zone in Aceh province, northern Sumatra, Indonesia, is progressing well with two drill rigs turning, both having encountered visually altered and mineralized rock in holes EMD017 and 018. Assays are pending for EMD0016 (refer to drill location map on company's website).
The company also announces that excellent progress has been made in designing the resource estimate drill program for the South Miwah Bluff gold discovery. This program is expected to commence second-quarter 2010. Detailed follow-up mapping, rock and soil sampling have determined that the South Miwah Bluff gold zone is open and may significantly extend from the earlier mapping. The exploration grid is being extended east from the previously defined 650 metre-north-south by up to 300-metre-east-west footprint. Highlights from the detailed follow-up include strong anomalous gold in soils (one part per million gold) in an area open to the east, and coincident with high-relief topography and a surface-induced polarization zone with strong resistivity and chargeability results that extend further east (refer to the northeast quadrant of the South Miwah Bluff soil geochemistry map on the company's website).
Elsewhere in the company's impressive Indonesian gold portfolio, work has advanced at the Lower Tengkereng and Bahu porphyry gold-copper projects where geological, geochemical and ground preparations for drilling second-quarter 2010 are on schedule. East Asia plans to drill one to two holes in each of these projects to demonstrate the potential of these large porphyry gold systems.
Work at the Lower Tengkereng project has provided confidence to improve on grades from the limited historic drilling. Surface channel sampling by East Asia at Lower Tengkereng, including 31 metres of 0.77 gram per tonne gold plus 0.03 per cent copper and 116 metres of 0.33 gram per tonne gold plus 0.04 per cent copper, confirms the presence of gold-rich porphyry mineralization (see March 2, 2009, news release in Stockwatch). These results are significantly better than the historical drill intercepts from the upper 90 metres of the Lower Tengkereng porphyry system, beneath which 339 metres of 0.5 gram per tonne gold plus 0.2 per cent copper were encountered. Historic drill and current surface results at Lower Tengkereng are also better than results from Upper Tengkereng located 1.5 kilometres northeast (See Dec. 1, 2008, news release in Stockwatch). At Upper Tengkereng East Asia drilled a 646.25-metre hole averaging 0.39 gram per tonne gold plus 0.21 per cent copper (0.68 gram per tonne gold equivalent), including 268 metres of 0.57 gram per tonne gold plus 0.26 per cent copper (0.92 gram per tonne gold equivalent) from 318 to 586 metres. Significant near-surface gold mineralization was also intercepted, including 14 to 82 metres (68 metres) of 0.51 gram per tonne gold plus 0.21 per cent copper (0.80 gram per tonne gold equivalent).
Work at the Bahu project is near completion to provide drill targets in an area where porphyry gold mineralization and alteration have been defined over a 1.6-kilometre-by-0.9-kilometre area. This project has not been previously drilled. Channel sampling of intense quartz vein stockwork (in excess of 20-per-cent quartz vein density) has encountered 30 metres at 0.71 gram per tonne gold with 0.034 per cent copper, 36 metres at 0.65 gram per tonne gold with 0.031 per cent copper, 40 metres at 0.59 gram per tonne gold, and 46 metres at 0.75 gram per tonne gold with 0.027 per cent copper.
The Upper Tengkereng gold equivalent used a copper to gold ratio of 1:1.36 (1 per cent copper equals 1.36 grams gold); based on then current metal market prices, and assuming total recoveries of both metals.
Barisan porphyry geological setting
East Asia's Barisan II project encompasses a cluster of six known porphyry centres within a 6.2-kilometre-by-three-kilometre block (view map at the company's website). At the Upper and Lower Tengkereng prospect areas, two windows of similar porphyry gold-copper mineralization, located about 1.5 kilometres apart, are exposed through shallow interbedded sedimentary and volcanic cover rocks and may be linked at depth. Recent and historical drilling suggests that gold and copper grades improve with depth.
Geological features observed in drill core from Upper Tengkereng and surface outcrops at Lower Tengkereng confirm that these systems share many features of the world's best gold-rich porphyry copper deposits in the circum-Pacific rim.
We seek Safe Harbor.