VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - July 20, 2010) - Kent Exploration Inc. (TSX VENTURE:KEX) reports that through its wholly owned subsidiary, Kent Exploration NZ Limited (together, the "Company" or "Kent"), it has received final results and an interpretive report from the recently completed induced polarization (IP) Survey on the Company's Alexander River Gold Project, approximately 25 kilometers south-southeast of Reefton, West Coast, South Island, New Zealand.
The IP results can be viewed on the Company website at https://www.kent-exploration.com/ipsurvey.html
The IP survey outlined several targets defined by chargeability highs, both near the historic mine workings and in what appears to be a continuation of the Alexander Reef zone (as a low-angle body) or a second sulphide-mineralized zone to the north. Gold- and arsenic-in-soil anomalies define the historic mine area along its length, and also parallel to the south and north, where they overlie the northern IP target areas. Historic drawings place two parallel lodes, the "Loftus Reef" and "Downey's Reef", to the north of the Alexander Reef.
The IP Survey followed up on a trenching program conducted in 2009, where the Company's geological consultants, under the direction of Ms.Nancy Reardon, M.Sc. P.Geol., located and sampled the majority of the historic trenches and adits which were sampled by CRA Exploration (CRA) in 1988, as well as other trenches not reported to have been sampled by CRA. These trenches and adits are located intermittently along a gold-mineralized trend over a strike length of approximately 1.2 km, above or within a series of pre-1943 mine workings. Other than in the immediate historic mine area, there is little outcrop apart from the exposed showings on the ridges and in the creeks.
Highlights from the Company's 2009 trenching program include:
-- 3.2m at 24.60 g/t Au including 1.9m at 40.38 g/t Au-- 6.4m at 6.87 g/t Au including 3.2m at 12.91 g/t Au-- 8.0m at 10.56 g/t Au including 2.9m at 20.20 g/t Au-- 12.8m at 4.50 g/t Au including 4.1m at 9.13 g/t Au
Gold at Alexander River is present in both high-grade quartz lodes and intimately associated with arsenopyrite and pyrite in wallrocks within a zone peripheral to the lode mineralization, which appears to be similar to the occurrence of gold at the Globe Progress Mine, approximately 19 km to the north. At Globe Progress, a curvilinear shear with both steeply- and shallowly-dipping components is a key aspect to the localization of mineralization. Some of the chargeability high targets at Alexander River appear to be associated with low-angle bodies or structures.
Kent is preparing to conduct a diamond drill program to test IP anomalies and other geological targets and has made an application to the NZ Department of Conservation for an initial, limited, low impact, diamond drill program on the Alexander River property.
Alexander River Exploration Background
The Alexander River gold prospect covers 2,669 hectares and encompasses the historic Alexander gold mine, which reportedly produced 41,091 ounces of gold from 47,726 tonnes of quartz prior to closing in 1943.
Mapping, soil sampling, trenching and rock chip sampling of outcrops, trenches and adits carried out by CRA in 1988 established the potential for a significant gold resource at Alexander River, hosted by both outcropping quartz lodes and an auriferous halo of sulphide-hosted mineralization within wallrocks around the historic reef lodes and returned values from grab samples up to 52 g/t gold. A mineralized strike length of 1200m was mapped out, with potential for extensions and parallel zones. In 1992, based on CRA's data, Macraes Mining (predecessor to OceanaGold) estimated that there existed the potential for a resource of approximately four million tonnes grading more than five grams per tonne gold, for approximately 643,000 ounces of gold, as reported in a report filed with Crown Minerals NZ in 1993. The Macraes report is available for viewing on the Company's website at: https://www.kent-exploration.com/reports/MR3242AlexanderMine1993.pdf