Alto Ventures Ltd. has announced results from the 2011 summer exploration programs on its 100% owned Miner Lake Property located in the Beardmore-Geraldton Gold Belt, Ontario.
The programs consisted of extensive surface bedrock sampling, geological mapping, mechanical and hydraulic stripping and diamond drilling. The surface exploration continued to build on work that started in 2010 and identified widespread breccia zones with persistent gold mineralization. The drilling program consisted of nine holes and was the first completed on the property by Alto. Eight of the nine holes intersected significant gold anomalies with hole MIN11-06 intersecting 39.2 m at an average grade of 0.6 g/t gold.
"Results from our 2011 program are very positive," commented Mike Koziol, President and Director of Alto. He adds, "The persistent and widespread distribution of gold in the numerous hydrothermal breccia zones is very encouraging because of the many similarities in style of mineralization to the Cote Lake deposit operated by Trelawney Resources. These early stage exploration programs have confirmed the presence of a large gold-mineralizing system on the property. The challenge now will be to drill into the economic heart of this gold system."
The surface exploration identified widespread hydrothermal breccia zones that contain anomalous gold mineralization within an intermediate intrusive body. The size potential of the mineralized breccia zones is not yet known but the intrusion hosting the gold has surface dimensions of approximately 2.5 km by 1.5 km (see Figure 1) and there are still large areas of the intrusion that have not been prospected and sampled. Gold values up to 4.31 g/t gold were obtained in the breccia zones from the 2011 surface sampling. The breccia zones occur mainly as east striking bands, up to tens of metres in width throughout the intrusion. The intrusion is also sheared and pervasive sulphide mineralization with anomalous gold and copper occurs associated with the sheared areas.
The diamond drilling consisted of 1,732 m in nine holes testing some of the breccia zones that were located during the 2010 and 2011 surface programs. Significant gold anomalies were intersected in most of the drill holes including a wide zone in MIN11-06 which intersected 39.2 m averaging 0.6 g/t gold. Hole MIN11-07 intersected three wide zones of significant gold mineralization (see Table 1). The gold-bearing breccia zones that were tested are open along strike and to depth. There are numerous other targets that require drilling.
The Miner Lake Property had been subject to sporadic exploration work prior to Alto's recent programs and only limited drilling was completed in the past. One historical hole (CM08-04) was drilled 100 m west of Alto hole MIN11-04 and it intersected 36.7 m averaging 0.25 g/t gold further confirming the widespread gold system.
Source: www.altoventures.com