Jan 6 2011
Golden Predator Corp. (TSX: GPD) has announced that it has signed an option agreement to acquire a 100% interest in 125 quartz mineral claims known as the McConnell Property, located in the Mayo Mining District approximately 85 kilometres north of the Village of Mayo, Yukon, Canada.
McConnell Property
The 2500 Ha McConnell Project is located immediately to the east of the Victoria Gold Dublin Gulch-Shamrock claim block and adjacent to the Alexco Keno Hill claim block to the south. The project area covers a mid Cretaceous intrusive that was classified in 2003 by Gordey and Makepeace of the Geological Survey of Canada. Gordey and Makepeace extrapolated Roots geological mapping to produce their geological compilation of the occurrence area. According to their compilation, the area is underlain by Middle to Late Devonian Earn Group carbonaceous metasediments and felsic metavolcanics which have been intruded by a mid-Cretaceous granitic intrusion assigned to the 92 million year old Tombstone Suite (MINFILENo.: 106D 055) . This intrusive is mapped as the same plutonic suite as the Dublin Gulch intrusive immediately to the west of the McConnell property that hosts the Eagle Gold deposit, with an indicated gold resource of 2.7 million ounces.
The target model for the McConnell property is a reduced intrusion-related gold system. Reduced intrusion-related gold systems (RIRGS) as defined by Hart (Hart, C.J.R., 2007, Reduced intrusion-related gold systems) are characterized by widespread arrays of sheeted auriferous quartz veins that preferentially form in the brittle carapace at the top of small plutons, where they form bulk-tonnage, low-grade Au deposits characterized by a Au-Bi-Te-W metal assemblage, such as the Fort Knox and Dublin Gulch deposits.
Sheeted vein zones cut both the intrusive and the country rock at the McConnell property. The sheeted veins have been sampled by the vendor with 10 of 28 select rock chip samples returning anomalous values in one or more of the following elements: Tungsten, Antimony, Arsenic, Bismuth, Gold and Silver.
The project has not been drilled and has only seen very limited ineffective soil sampling programs dating to the 1960s before the current program. Golden Predator plans on systematic mapping and sampling during 2011 to identify priority drill targets.
Transaction Terms
As consideration for the option, the Company paid $20,000 and issued 38,177 common shares. To exercise the Option, the Company will, in stages, pay an additional $425,000, issue up to $225,000 worth of shares (valued at the date of issuance), and incur exploration expenditures of $1,425,000 on or before November 4, 2015. Alternatively the Company can exercise the option by making a one-time cash payment of $1,000,000 at any time before November 4, 2015.
The Property will be subject to a 2.5% NSR, which the Company has the right to repurchase, in 1/2% increments, by paying $500,000 for each 1/2%. Provided that the average gold price for the preceding year is over USD$700/oz, the Company will be required to make annual advance royalty payments of $150,000 beginning on November 4, 2016 until commencement of commercial production from the Property. All advance royalty payments, as well as $175,000 of the $425,000 in cash payments described above, are creditable against amounts due under the NSR. In the event that the Company exercises the option by making the one-time cash payment, the annual advance royalty payments shall be $25,000.
The technical content of this news release has been reviewed and approved by Corwin (Cor) Coe, A.Sc.T., B.Sc., P.Geo., the Company's Vice-President, Exploration (Canada) and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.