Dec 3 2010
Crocodile Gold Corp. (TSX:CRK)(OTCQX:CROCF)(FRANKFURT:XGC) has announced that it has increased the mineral resource estimate at its Mt. Bundy project located within the Mt. Bundy tenement package in the Northern Territory of Australia.
Highlights include:
- Increase of over 40% in indicated mineral resource ounces from 475,000 ounces to 681,000 ounces; and
- New inferred mineral resource ounces of 378,000 ounces.
The mineral resource estimate was reviewed and optimized by Mark Edwards, Geology Manager of Crocodile Gold Australia Operations, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Company. Additional details on parameters used in calculating the resource estimate are provided below. Mark Edwards is a "qualified person" as such term is defined in National Instrument 43-101 and has reviewed and confirmed the technical information and data included in this press release.
The Mt. Bundy deposit is located approximately 15 kilometres to the southwest of Crocodile Gold's Tom's Gully mine. The deposit was previously mined with a shallow open pit providing 4.71 million tonnes at 1.05 g/t gold of ore which was processed using a heap leach facility on site, with an overall gold recovery of around 70%. Mining was completed in the 1990's and no mining has taken place since this operation finished. From 2004 to 2006, Valencia Ventures Inc. (a previous owner) completed a project feasibility study, however at that time, as the average long term gold price used in the study was approximately $450 per ounce, the project was deferred.
Dave Keough, Chief Operating Officer of Crocodile Gold commented, "Our exploration team is actively reviewing opportunities in the Mt. Bundy project area as part of our overall strategic review. In addition to the update of resources, reserves and mine planning in the immediate vicinity of the Tom's Gully mill and underground mine, we are reviewing all available data in the area to determine both other potential sources of ore for the Tom's Gully mill and also the potential for other strategic opportunities such as a larger production centre at Tom's Gully."
The current indicated resource estimate for the Mt. Bundy project area (including Tom's Gully and Mt. Bundy) now totals over 850,000 ounces of gold and the current inferred resource estimate now totals over 445,000 ounces of gold. Crocodile Gold's focus in the project area is now directed on understanding the potential of the Quest Deposits located 17 kilometres from Tom's Gully which were a series of shallow open pits mined between 1999 and 2003 with the ore treated at a dedicated heap leach facility and the higher grade ore treated at the Tom's Gully processing facility.
The Mt. Bundy deposit is a sediment-hosted, sheeted and stockwork quartz-sulphide-vein hosted gold deposit. The host sedimentary units predominantly consist of shale and siltstone with minor chert and greywacke. These units are strongly folded about tight north-northeasterly trending southerly plunging folds. The deposit is located at the nose of one of the regional south plunging anticlines. Gold mineralization occurs within three spatially separate stratigraphic units, primarily on the western limb of the anticline, over a stratigraphic thickness of at least 300 metres. East-west trending faulting has locally offset the mineralization. Gold occurs as finely disseminated grains, most commonly in cherty quartz layers where stratigraphy is cut by quartz-sulphide veins.
Source: Crocodile Gold Corp.