Kelowna, British Columbia--(Newsfile Corp. - January 18, 2021) - Enduro Metals Corporation (TSXV: ENDR) (OTC Pink: SIOCF) (FSE: SOG) ("Enduro Metals" or the "Company") is pleased to report that a recent geochronology study led by Dr. Kyle Larson at The University of British Columbia | Okanagan Campus has shown that certain intrusive rocks at Burgundy are coeval with the Galore Creek Suite - the namesake of the rock-types forming the neighbouring Galore Creek deposit. Burgundy is 1 of 4 major systems within the Company's 638km2 Newmont Lake Project situated in the heart of BC's prolific Golden Triangle.
Results from this study are part of an ongoing exploration initiative to fingerprint the 4 major systems at Newmont Lake. Drilling results from the 2020 season are still pending and will be made available once received and interpreted.
"The BC Geological Survey has identified 5 specific times during the Golden Triangle's geologic history synonymous with big deposits," commented Enduro CEO Cole Evans. "Learning that Burgundy falls directly within the time window that formed Galore Creek is an important step forward that will help us narrow our targeting efforts in the area."
Burgundy is a minimum 2.3km long trend of alkalic copper-gold porphyry occurrences found in the western half of the Newmont Lake Project. Enduro conducted a shallow first-pass diamond drilling program on several targets throughout Burgundy in 2019 that had never been diamond drilled historically.
During that campaign, a late-season discovery was made in an area a few hundred metres south of drilling now known as the Green Rock Breccia ("Green Rock") (see Enduro January 17th, 2020). The first and only surface trench sample from Green Rock returned a continuous 37.00m of 1.31% copper, 1.49 g/t gold, 23.26 g/t silver, and 2.97% zinc from beginning to end. Mineralization visually continued, but sampling efforts were cut short by winter conditions. Green Rock has never been drilled.
When asked, Enduro CEO Cole Evans said, "I spotted it from the helicopter. I was scanning the edge of the snow and seemingly out of nowhere it jumped out. I turned to our pilot and said put me down, that's the spot!"
Figure 1: Multi-kilometre alteration zones seen on surface pictured behind a diamond drill platform at the 72' Zone; an area within the Burgundy area of interest.
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Drilling results from the first-pass program were encouraging. At Burgundy Ridge, the Company intersected 91.26m of 0.38% copper, 0.30 g/t gold, and 4.12 g/t silver starting at 37-metres downhole (October 25th, 2019). Two kilometres to the northeast, the discovery of the first hypogene mineralization at the 72' Zone assayed 56.35m of 0.45% copper, 0.33 g/t gold, and 3.44 g/t silver starting at 225 metres downhole. A zone of stronger biotite alteration within the interval returned 22.28m of 0.89% copper, 0.71 g/t gold, and 6.65 g/t Ag (see Enduro October 9th, 2019).
The geochronological study conducted at The University of British Columbia's | Okanagan Campus' Fipke Laboratory for Trace Element Research (FiLTER) age-dated a variety of rocks associated with a suite of syenitic intrusions that dominate the Burgundy landscape. Of these, a very specific rock associated with copper and gold mineralization (scientific name - Bimodal Megacrystic Syenite) was age-dated at ~208 million years old, well within the 212 to 205-million-year-old age range of the Galore Creek Suite according to regional research completed by the British Columbia Geological Survey. Other geochronological samples age-dated in the study are being used to define a pre- to post-mineral window to thoroughly quantify multiple mineralizing events.
"We are grateful for the work, state-of-the-art equipment, and expertise UBC Okanagan has provided us, and we are proud to support research and development in our community."
Galore Creek is a world-class copper-gold-silver alkalic porphyry deposit located 30km northwest of Burgundy on Enduro's Newmont Lake Project. The Galore Creek project is owned under a 50/50 joint venture between Newmont Corporation and Teck Resources Limited. Fifty percent interest was previously owned by explorer NovaGold Resources until the sale of their interest in the project was purchased by Newmont Corporation in July 2018 for $275 million USD.
Figure 2: Uranium - Lead radiometric dating of Titanite in sample AW0234 (Bimodal Megacrystic Syenite) displays an isochronal age of 207.8 +\- 2.7 Ma over 27 measurements. Titanite is an ideal mineral for U - Pb isotopic dating because of its relatively high U, Th, and Pb content.
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More details of the study will be made available on the Company's website www.endurometals.com shortly.
QAQC / Analytical Procedures
Core samples from the Newmont Lake Project were sent to MSA LABS' preparation facility in Terrace, B.C., where samples were prepared using method PRP-910. Samples were dried, crushed to 2mm, split 250g and pulverized to 85% passing 75 microns. Prepped samples were sent to MSA LABS' analytical facility in Langley, B.C, where 50g pulps were analyzed for gold using method FAS-221 (fire assay-AAS finish). Gold assays greater than 100 g/t Au were automatically analyzed using FAS-425 (fire assay with a gravimetric finish). Rock samples were analyzed for 48 elements using method IMS-230, multi-element ICP-MS 4-acid digestion, ultra-trace level. Silver assay results greater than 100 g/t Ag and copper, lead, and zinc greater than 10,000 ppm were automatically analyzed by ore grade method ICF-6.
Enduro Metals conducts its own QA/QC program where five standard reference material pulps, five blank reference material samples, and two field duplicates are inserted for every 100 samples when analyzing core samples.
Mineral chronometers, zircon, titanite and apatite, were separated from the selected specimens following standard crushing, heavy liquid and magnetic procedures. All analyses were carried out using laser ablation inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry at the Fipke Laboratory for Trace Element Research (FiLTER) at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. A minimum laser spot diameter of 25 microns was used. Matrix matched reference materials were used for each of the different mineral types investigated to quantify and correct for any potential element fractionation and/or drift throughout the analytical runs. Secondary reference materials were run as unknowns to verify instrument calibration. All secondary materials returned ages within uncertainty of the accepted ages. The calculated dispersions on the isotope ratios measured in the secondary reference materials were used to verify analytical uncertainties. Data were reduced using the Iolite software (v.4.3) of Paton et al. (2010, 2011) and plotted using the ChrontouR package (Larson, 2020) for the open R software environment.
Larson, K.P., 2020, ChrontouR:, doi:10.17605/OSF.IO/P46MB.
Paton, C., Hellstrom, J., Paul, B., Woodhead, J., and Hergt, J., 2011, Iolite: Freeware for the visualisation and processing of mass spectrometric data: Journal of analytical atomic spectrometry, v. 26, p. 2508-2512.
Paton, C., Woodhead, J.D., Hellstrom, J.C., Hergt, J.M., Greig, A., and Maas, R., 2010, Improved laser ablation U-Pb zircon geochronology through robust downhole fractionation correction: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, v. 11, p. Q0AA06.
Qualified Person
The technical information in this news release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. John Biczok, P. Geo., a consulting geologist with recent experience in the Newmont Lake area and a Qualified Person responsible for the scientific and technical information contained herein under National Instrument 43-101 standards.
About Enduro Metals
Enduro Metals is an exploration company focused on it's flagship Newmont Lake Project; a total 638km2 property located between Eskay Creek, Snip, and Galore Creek within the heart of northwestern British Columbia's Golden Triangle. Enduro entered into an option agreement to acquire 436km2 from Romios Gold Resources who has carefully amalgamated the area since 2005 from numerous smaller operators. Remaining terms on the option agreement are a $1,000,000 CAD cash payment, and issuance of 4 million Common Shares to Romios Gold Resources. Romios will retain a 2% Net Smelter Returns Royalty (an "NSR") on the Newmont Lake Project, or on any after-acquired claims within a 5 km radius of the original boundary of the project, which may be reduced at any time to a 1% NSR on the payment of $2 million per 0.5% NSR. The remaining 202km2 is owned 100% by Enduro and was acquired via staking or cash purchase. Building on prior results, the Company's geological team have outlined 4 deposit environments of interest across the Newmont Lake Project including high-grade epithermal/skarn gold along the McLymont Fault, copper-gold alkalic porphyry mineralization at Burgundy, high-grade epithermal/skarn silver/zinc at Cuba, and a large 9km x 4km geochemical anomaly hosting various gold, silver, copper, zinc, nickel, cobalt, and lead mineralization along the newly discovered Chachi Corridor.
On Behalf of the Board of Directors,