Jan 13 2011
Huakan International Mining Inc. (TSX VENTURE:HK) announces results from the first ten holes of an underground drilling program on its 100% owned gold-silver-lead-zinc J&L property, located near Revelstoke, BC.
The initial drill program of 2,000 metres has been increased to 7,800 metres due to better than anticipated results and the Company's desire to aggressively advance the project towards pre-feasibility. The Company has completed 45 holes in 5,500 metres to date. The program is expected to be completed by the end of January 2011 and is aimed at verifying historic drilling and expanding limits of the known mineralization of the Main Zone so that a National Instrument 43-101 compliant resource estimate can be completed in the spring of 2011.
The J&L property is one of the largest undeveloped polymetallic deposits in British Columbia. The 2,325 hectare property has two significant precious and polymetallic mineral deposits. The Main Zone is a stratiform, structurally deformed massive sulphide deposit. Surface exploration has traced the Main Zone for 3 kilometres and historic drilling has identified the Main Zone for 1.4 kilometres in strike length and a down dip extent of 800 metres. The Main Zone averages 2.5 metres thick. The Yellowjacket Zone is a siliceous Zn-Pb-Ag stratabound deposit that sub parallels and is located in the immediate hanging wall of the Main Zone. The Main Zone is the focus of the current drill program.
The current drill program has confirmed Main Zone type mineralization of alternating bands of massive sulphide mineralization, stringer sulphide mineralization, and lesser mineralized sections hosted in phyllite and limestone. Results include 1.96 metres (true thickness estimated) grading 22.90 g/t Au, 245.56 g/t Ag, 4.51% Pb and 8.03% Zn, and 5.30 metres (true thickness estimated) grading 8.09 g/t Au, 51.43 g/t Ag, 1.32% Pb and 2.17% Zn.
Two underground rigs are operating at J&L in different areas of the underground workings. Twelve holes were required as verification drilling. However, the program has gone well beyond that by completing infill drilling for 30 metre centre drill density across the Main Zone deposit. To date, the high density drill pattern defines the Main Zone on longitudinal section over an area of 800 metres long by 200 metres down dip. The deposit is open along strike and both up dip and down dip. Holes MM10-01, 02, 03, 05, 07, 08 and 010, which were drilled in the northwest end of the deposit, focused on a longitudinal surface area of 165 metres by 60 metres. Holes MM10-04, 06 and 09 were drilled approximately 440 metres to the southeast and over a longitudinal surface area of 30 metres by 80 metres.
The results are in line with historic drilling on the Main Zone. For comparison, the Main Zone has an historic resource, which was prepared by Equinox Resources Ltd. in 1991 as "Proven and Probable Ore Reserves" of 1.7 million tonnes grading 7.38 g/t gold, 75.9 g/t silver, 2.64% lead and 4.43% zinc and an historic "Possible Ore Reserve" of 1.9 million tonnes grading 7.12 g/t gold, 85.5 g/t silver, 3.32% lead and 3.48% zinc. Huakan has not prepared nor confirmed this resource estimation and as it pre-dates National Instrument 43-101, it does not comply with NI 43-101 requirements for mineral resource estimation. Huakan does not treat these numbers as a current resource on the property and the resource should not be relied upon. Mr. David Makepeace, P.Eng. prepared a NI 43-101 geological report for Merit (now Huakan) dated April 13, 2007. In Mr. Makepeace's report, the historic "Proven and Probable Ore Reserve" category would likely be equivalent to an "Indicated Mineral Resource" category and the historic "Possible Ore Reserve" category would likely be equivalent to an "Inferred Mineral Resource" category under the current CIM classification (CIM Definition Standards, 2004).
The current drill program is under the supervision of Paul Cowley, P.Geo., the Company's Qualified Person and VP Exploration. BQTW-sized core samples are cut in half and sent to Eco Tech Laboratory Ltd. (Stewart Group) in Kamloops, BC. Samples are assayed for gold by fire assay (50 gram charge) as well as assayed for silver, lead and zinc. The Company inserts standards, blanks and duplicate samples throughout the sample sequence as quality control checks.
Assays on the remaining drill holes are pending.
Source: Huakan International Mining Inc.