Sep 10 2015
Pacific Ridge Exploration Ltd. ("Pacific Ridge" or the "Company") reports that it is planning a 750 m rotary air blast ("RAB") drill program at its Mariposa, White Gold District, Yukon gold property, to commence shortly. The Company also reports that it has received a $100,000 cash payment and shares with a value of $125,000 from MinQuest Limited ("MinQuest") as part of MinQuest's option to earn an initial 51% interest in the Company's Fyre Lake deposit (see Fyre Lake, below).
Mariposa Drill Program
In 2011, the Company drilled a near-surface intersection of 2.44 grams per tonne ("gpt") gold over 38.9 m, including 6.44 gpt gold over 11.1 m, as well as a deeper intersection of 6.51 gpt gold over 3.2 m in the Skookum Main zone (hole 11MP-01). This drilling was part of a three year (2010 to 2012), six million dollar comprehensive exploration program over the 280 km2 Mariposa property. Subsequent structural interpretations combined with new soil sampling results suggest that this Skookum Main zone discovery is open along strike. The proposed drill program will test this interpretation with a series of RAB drill holes. The program will also test the Skookum West zone, where recent deep penetrating Geoprobe© soil samples have returned results including 7.201 gpt gold and 3.488 gpt gold (range 0.003 to 7.201 gpt gold; 50 samples), in the same area where trenching in 2012 encountered 1.494 gpt gold over 10 m in trench SWTR12-08 and 0.886 gpt gold over 20 m in trench SWTR12-09.
About Pacific Ridge
Pacific Ridge is a mineral exploration company with a successful history of over 30 years. It holds a well-located project portfolio in Yukon's White Gold District, in the same geological environment as Kinross Gold's White Gold deposit and Kaminak Gold's Coffee Gold Project. The Company's 280 km2 Mariposa gold project covers the prolific Scroggie and Mariposa placer gold creeks located east of the Coffee Gold Project. Mariposa has seen a $6 million program of soil sampling, trenching and drilling carried out over the past five years that resulted in discovery of a number of well-mineralized gold zones. In addition the Company's 49 km2 Gold Cap property, with yet-to-be drill tested gold soil anomalies, adjoins the Kinross White Gold deposit. The 33 km2 Eureka Dome property, centrally located in the White Gold District, is drained by several placer gold bearing creeks. Geochemical anomalies suggest the presence of a high level epithermal style gold system. The Sophie property, held under option from 39242 Yukon Inc., lies on the south side of King Solomon Dome and contains anomalous gold and silver in soils.
The Company's 100 percent owned Fyre Lake copper-gold-cobalt massive sulphide project in the Yukon's Finlayson Lake District is now under option to MinQuest Limited, a publicly listed Australian company. MinQuest may earn an initial 51% interest by making payments in cash and shares valued at $1.3 million over three years and completing $3.5 million in exploration. To date, the Fyre Lake Kona Deposit has been defined by 115 holes totaling over 23,200 metres of diamond drilling. A NI 43-101 compliant mineral resource estimate of the Kona Deposit reported in 2006 includes an indicated mineral resource of 3.571 million tonnes grading 1.57% copper, 0.10% cobalt and 0.61 grams gold per tonne at a 1% copper cut-off grade. In addition, an inferred mineral resource, at the same cut-off grade, includes 5.361 million tonnes grading 1.48% copper, 0.08% cobalt and 0.53 grams gold per tonne. These estimates were prepared by D. Blanchflower, P.Geo., of Minorex Consulting Ltd., who is the qualified person for this purpose.
In 2014, MinQuest completed an airborne VTEM survey over the Fyre Lake property as well as re-sampling of key historical drill intervals. MinQuest is now preparing for a 2015 through 2016 exploration program at Fyre Lake that is planned to include geological mapping, soil sampling and infill and extensional drilling with the objective of increasing the size of the Kona resource. MinQuest also plans to test priority drill targets within the Fyre Lake Property that hold potential for discovery of additional copper-gold massive sulphide mineralization.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Gerald G. Carlson, President & CEO
Pacific Ridge Exploration Ltd.