Alexandria Minerals Corporation (TSX-V: AZX; Frankfurt: A9D) reports that it will begin a 2-rig, 20,000 m drilling programme at its Akasaba gold-silver project near Val d'Or, Quebec, in mid-February.
Eric Owens, Alexandria President and CEO, said, "During the past year we have had significant drilling success at Alexandria and we have been methodically reviewing our results in order to determine an optimum drill program. We will now be commencing the single largest drill program in Alexandria's history. We expect this initiative to greatly expand the potential of our flagship Akasaba Project."
From 1960 to 1962, the Akasaba Mine produced some 40,000 ounces of gold, at a grade of 5.12 g/t Au, and 10,000 ounces of silver, from an underground stope to a depth of just 90 m. During that time period, exploration and development work focused on the main "Mine Horizon", and identified multiple parallel gold-quartz-pyrrhotite-chalcopyrite veins or "lenses" collectively these lenses form a zone 75 m wide, 150 m long and 150 m deep. Only the southernmost of the lenses was mined.
Over the past 14 months, Alexandria has enlarged this gold zone, to its present dimensions of 900 m long by more than 300 m deep, by completing more than 20,000 m of drilling on the project. Results from the 2010 drilling programme have shown potential for both shallow level, wide, low grade gold mineralization over much of the 900 m strike length tested, as well as high grade gold -quartz veins to a depth of more than 400 m, still open at depth. A partial list of previously-reported drill holes exemplify these two target types (all lengths are True Widths):
The shallow intercepts cover a strike length of 900 m, and this zone remains open to the west and at depth. The recently-discovered high grade zone extends to more than 325 m depth, and likewise remains open at depth. Currently, assays are pending for 18 holes at Akasaba; notably this includes a number of fill-in holes at shallow depths. The new drilling programme will focus on 1) filling-in between existing holes to better prepare for future resource estimates, 2) step out holes, in order to expand the size of the gold zone, 3) testing new targets nearby.
The Company is also completing a downhole geophysical study to better target holes in the deeper subsurface, and will be completing an area-wide geophysical survey to aid in testing Akasaba-like targets nearby.
All drill holes presented in this press release have been released previously, and fall within the purview of the public record. Some results differ from their initially-released assay runs as new information has been acquired and re-interpretation has occurred. These results have been reviewed by the Company's Qualified Persons, Jared Beebe, PGeo, and Eric Owens, PGeo.
There does not currently exist a National Instrument 43-101 compliant resource on Alexandria's Akasaba project, nor is there a guarantee that an economic mineral deposit occurs on the property. Further work by Alexandria Minerals Corporation and an Independent Qualified Person will be necessary to evaluate both aspects.
Source: Alexandria Minerals Corporation