The exploration program is focusing on evaluation of test pits excavated by mobile trackhoes in areas of potential. In addition to providing lithological data and access to relatively fresh material for rock assay sampling, these pits provide relatively continuous sections of structural data to assist in determining the trend and orientation of important targets for White Gold setting hangingwall-footwall contact zones (Doherty & Ash, 2005, White 43-101); a newly recognized style of gold deposit possibly best described as “ophiolitic terrane-boundary contact\suture zone, bulk-tonnage gold”.
Preliminary, broad-based regional mapping of the property has been successful in delineating a significant volume of previously undocumented, hangingwall ophiolitic rocks. Of particular importance, where contacts between the hangingwall, or upper-plate rocks and footwall, or lower-plate rocks have been observed they often display the effects of intense and pervasive listwanite (carbonate, sericite\mariposite, pyrite) alteration, a characteristic feature of major gold-quartz vein deposits globally and an apparent requirement for generating the more significant low-grade, bulk tonnage style of gold mineralization recently found at Kinross/Underworld Resources and Kaminak Gold Corporation’s advanced exploration projects in the White Gold District.
The significance of discovering the large amount of hangingwall ophiolitic rocks on the Leota Gold property is twofold, as it:
- Increases and expands the volume of perspective host rocks with the potential for containing coarse, nuggety, high-grade gold-quartz vein deposits similar to those that sourced the Klondike placer gold. More importantly, the bulk of the newly recognized upper-plate rocks are mafic igneous rocks (gabbro & diabase), and are immediately associated with the previously documented ultramafic rocks. Mafic igneous rocks of this type are:
- The most prolific rock type for hosting coarse, gold in high-grade quartz vein deposits elsewhere in the North American Cordillera including at Bralorne, Cassiar, and Barkerville;
- Can be clearly demonstrated to have at one time prior to erosion, existed directly above the Klondike’s placer gold deposits (Ash, 2006, Economic Geology);
- Are relatively abundant in the Leota property mapped to date, and have never been explored as potential gold-quartz vein host rocks, or the hard rock gold source.
- Substantially increases and expands the area of the contact zone between the hangingwall and footwall rocks. The prospective area for low-grade, bulk-tonnage, White-style gold mineralization is also expanded because the upper and lower plate rocks on the Leota property have been openly folded on a large scale in such a manner that the contact zone between these upper and lower rock packages is repeated several times as separate belts in line with the axis of regional folding, thus increasing the number of potentially mineralized tectonized and altered contact zones to be explored at surface.
Additionally, the identification of younger granites and felsite dikes on the property are comparable to those found on Kinross/Underworld’s Golden Saddle, and Kaminak Gold’s Coffee properties in the White Gold District, and represents an important element to the overall geological framework for generation of potential gold mineralization.
Detailed mapping in the area of Alexander Pup, in the center of the Leota Gold property, indicates that this area of past-producing placer gold is underlain by a belt of variably talc-carbonate-sericite-pyrite altered ultramafic and mafic igneous (gabbro, diabase, basalt) rocks.
A program of ongoing mapping, prospecting, and sampling in addition to regional and more detailed, soil sampling programs is ongoing. In particular, a broadly based soil sampling program will involve ridge and spur sampling to target a largely untested area in the southern region of the property due south from All Gold Creek. This regional program is planned to both:
- highlight any potential gold anomalies to provide focused exploration targets for the start of the 2011 field program; and
- provide geochemical data to fingerprint rock types for extending currently identified, perspective upper plate\hanging wall, ophiolitic rocks to the southeast.
More detailed soil sampling programs are being conducted in three separate areas of the property where intense and pervasive hydrothermally altered contact-zone rocks have been locally exposed and provided data to establish the trend of these target exploration zones.
To assist in determining prospective drill targets, samples have been submitted for processing and analysis. Assay results are forthcoming.
The Leota Gold property is the largest contiguous claim block in the historic Klondike Goldfields. To-date, up to 15% of the property has been professionally evaluated with 5% mapped in detail. Very large and significant areas on the property remain to be mapped and sampled. Goldbank’s option to acquire up to 100% of the Leota Gold property was accepted by the TSX Venture Exchange on
This news release has been reviewed and approved for technical content by Chris H. Ash, P. Geo. Mr. Ash is a qualified person as defined under the terms of National Instrument 43-101.
For further information please contact the President, Anthony J. Beruschi B.Sc.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS
GOLDBANK MINING CORPORATION
ANTHONY J. BERUSCHI
President
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of this release. Cautionary Note to US Investors: This news release may contain information about adjacent properties on which we have no right to explore or mine. We advise U.S. investors that the