BGM Corporate update
Barkerville collects 7,499 samples from Gold Quartz
2013-10-16 09:58 ET - News Release
Mr. Frank Callaghan reports
BARKERVILLE PROVIDES PROJECT UPDATE
Barkerville Gold Mines Ltd. has provided a project update on its Cariboo gold project including the Gold Quartz (Cow Mountain) prospect, Bonanza Ledge mine and the historic Island Mountain prospect, near Wells, B.C., and the QR mine and mill near Quesnel, B.C. The company continues working toward completing recommendations put forward in the technical report, dated Dec. 31, 2012 (see news release dated June 19 2013).
Gold Quartz mine/Cow Mountain
Chief Geologist Jim Yin, Ph.D., P. Geo., reports that 7,499 infill drill core samples have been collected from 155 diamond drill holes. Of these, 15 diamond drill holes were completed in 2007, 11 in 2009, 17 in 2010, and 112 in 2011. Of the infill core samples, 7,000 have been cut, and 4,802 samples have been analyzed; work continues to complete the processing and analysis of this infill sampling.
Core sample assay rejects from a number of prior diamond drill holes have been returned to the laboratory for metallic screen fire assay & internal QA/QC analysis. A total of 952 reject samples from 33 holes drilled on Cow Mountain in 2011 have been pulled from storage. In addition, 16,596 sample rejects from drill holes completed between 2007 and 2011 will also all be pulled from storage and sent for metallic screen fire assay. Assay data for complete drill holes will be reported when available. Barkerville geologists Catherine Banfield, Konstantin Lesnikov and Jim Yin are working on the infill and reject sampling program.
"Reject fraction or sample is generally the coarse crushed portion of a sample that remains after a split of the sample has been removed for fine crushing (pulverizing) and for analysis including fire assay. The coarse crush reject is the unassayed portion of the sample that was not pulverized for analysis and the word reject does not reflect quality but rather that portion of the sample not used to prepare for analysis. It is a common practice that when high grade or coarse gold are found to be present that a metallic screen fire assay is performed on the coarse reject material utilizing higher subsample weight of 500 to 1000 grams of material, as opposed to 30g from a conventional fire assay."
Bonanza Ledge Mine/Barkerville Mountain
In the last two months, Snowden Mining Industry Consultants Inc. ("Snowden") has updated the geological model for Bonanza Ledge in an effort to confirm the ‘Starter Pit' defined in the Technical Report issued in August 2009. Using this new model, Snowden applied current economics (gold price and mining/processing costs) to define a potential pit for Bonanza Ledge. Both the model and the ultimate pit were not materially different from the 2009 work.
Within the ultimate pit shell, Snowden identified a smaller pit shell with a concentration of mineralized material representing approximately one year's mill feed. This became the basis of a pit design which is now complete and under review for finalization and implementation. Don Barker P. Eng., has been retained to independently review this work on behalf of the Company.
Mr. Tom Hatton, Mine Superintendent for Wells, reports that the diversion ditches and sediment collection ponds throughout the ditch system are completed and armored. The sediment control dam in Lowhee Gulch has been completed and overflow pipe anchors are currently being installed. A drainage ditch below the snow storage site is also under construction and work is ongoing.
The toe berm for the organic overburden has been stripped in preparation for the placement of rock; a substantial amount of the organic overburden has been moved to the roadside in preparation for hauling, which is ongoing. The majority of waste wood fibre has been delivered to the tub grinder, grinding is expected to commence over the next week.
The sites for the site office, explosives storage area and laydown area have been prepared and are ready for rock cap in preparation for Bonanza Ledge production.
The Company's mine geologists Rebecca Stirling, Rachel Peterson and Catherine Banfield will be involved in the open pit mining of Bonanza Ledge.
Island Mountain Mine/Island Mountain
APEX Geoscience Ltd. (APEX) was engaged by Barkerville to conduct an extensive and ongoing digital data compilation, with the assistance of Barkerville's GIS geologist Ravi Darji, and a trench mapping and sampling campaign on the Company's Island Mountain prospect; this work commenced July 2013 with completion expected toward the end of 2013. Data compilation has been undertaken to provide Barkerville with a comprehensive digital database of all available current and historic work at Island Mountain comprising a complete GIS-based dataset, and complete drill hole database for use in three-dimensional (3-D) mining software.
This work has comprised: 1) the digitization of pre-existing AutoCAD files and an extensive set of hardcopy maps, sections and level