May 29 2012
Miranda Gold Corp. is pleased to announce that Agnico-Eagle (USA) Limited ("Agnico"), a wholly owned subsidiary of Agnico-Eagle Mines Limited has started its 2012 drilling program on Miranda's Ester Dome project located in the Fairbanks mining district of Alaska.
Agnico, Miranda's funding partner at Ester Dome, plans to drill approximately 5,900 ft (1,800 m) in nine holes. Drilling is designed to continue testing a large northwest-trending soil anomaly associated with a cluster of granitic bodies intruding schist and quartzite, and to offset significant mineralization drilled in late 2011.
The following table summarizes significant (defined as those gold grades of 0.010 oz Au/t (0.343 g Au/t) or higher over intervals of 5 ft (1.5 m) or longer) previously reported for 2011 drilling.
Drilling will test internal northeast-trending geochemical highs within the broader soil anomaly, which may possibly represent controls to higher-grade mineralization, and also magnetic anomalies associated with anomalous gold values and mapped intrusives.
Gold mineralization drilled in 2011 is associated with intense fracturing accompanied with iron oxides and quartz-sulfide veinlets. Locally mineralization is controlled by low-angle faults. Historic drilling by Placer Dome Exploration in 1998 demonstrated that these low-angle faults can control high-grade mineralization when 19.7 ft of 2.7 oz Au/t (6 m of 92.6 g Au/t) and 10 ft of 0.513 oz Au/t (3 m of 17.6 g Au/t) was intersected in two holes within the south edge of the soil anomaly being tested by Agnico.
Project Detail
Ester Dome and the surrounding Fairbanks Mining District are considered part of the Tintina Gold Province that extends from southwest Alaska through the central Yukon and is reported to contain resources of approximately 35 million ounces of gold. The Tintina belt is characterized by variants of intrusive-related gold deposits. The Ester Dome project consists of 181 Alaska state mining claims covering approximately 13.8 sq. mi (35.7 sq. km) and is located 5 mi (8 km) from Fairbanks, Alaska. The Fairbanks District has reportedly produced over 9.5 million ounces of alluvial gold. Over 3 million ounces of alluvial gold were reported to have been mined on the flanks of Ester Dome and the property covers the majority of the of the upland source area for that production.
The geology of Ester Dome comprises a suite of meta-sedimentary schist and quartzite separated by thrust faults and cut by igneous sills and small stocks. The mineralization on the Ester Dome project is prospective for both high-grade vein and shear-hosted gold deposits and larger-tonnage bulk-minable intrusion-related gold-deposits. Fairbanks area gold deposits, such as Fort Knox (+6 million ounces) that is hosted in an intrusive stock and characterized by sheeted quartz veins and shears, as well as True North (1.3 million ounces) that is hosted in complex imbricate shears with quartz veins in meta-sedimentary rocks, provide target analogues for exploration at Ester Dome.
All data, disclosed in this press release, including analytical and test data, have been reviewed and verified by Joseph Hebert, Vice President of Exploration, C.P.G., B.Sc. Geology and Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
Corporate Profile
Miranda Gold Corp. is a gold exploration company active in Nevada, Alaska and Colombia and whose emphasis is on generating gold exploration projects with world-class discovery potential. Miranda performs its own grass-roots exploration and then employs a joint venture business model on its projects in order to maximize exposure to discovery while minimizing exploration risk. Miranda has ongoing partnerships with Agnico-Eagle (USA) Limited, Montezuma Mines Inc., Navaho Gold Ltd., NuLegacy Corporation, Ramelius Resources Ltd., and Red Eagle Mining Corporation.