VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Feb. 8, 2010) - Stina Resources Ltd. (TSX VENTURE:SQA) (the "Company" or "Stina") announces the completion of a soil sample program that successfully confirms the anomalous gold results on their Dime claim block from earlier soil sampling programs by Tech Exploration in 1998-2000 and Fjordland Exploration in early 2000s. The 128 Dime claims comprise 2,655 hectares or about 26 square kilometers. The contiguous claims are located within the Ten Mile Creek area, an important past producer of placer gold, within the Dawson mining district in Yukon Territory. The property is about 75 km south of Dawson and 45 kilometers northwest of the Underworld-White gold property and Stina's Kodiak property, another promising gold property in similar geologic terrain. Gold is the primary target for exploration on the Dime claims. Refer to the 2009-07-23 News Release for particulars of the history of the early gold exploration and discovery in the Dime area and Stina's option of the Dime property from Ryanwood Exploration, the property vendor.
The confirmation sampling program conducted in the fall of 2009 consisted of 191 soil samples (plus 10 duplicates) collected on a grid covering about 37 hectares. The confirmation grid is located over the central portion of the original Tech and Fjordland soil anomaly near the southwest boundary of the Dime claim block. The north-south sample lines are 100 meters apart and were sampled at 25 meter intervals. All samples underwent ICP-MS multielement analysis. The present grid includes only a small portion of the Dime claim block, most of which has yet to be evaluated. Earlier scattered recon soil sampling has revealed additional strong anomalies to the east and northeast of the current grid that have yet to be evaluated.
The soil sample results delineated a prominent east-west belt of very high gold values with most samples ranging from 25 ppb to 256 ppb across the 700 meter grid length. The width of this anomalous belt ranges from 100 to 150 meters. The belt widens at the west edge of the grid with contiguous line of low anomalous gold values from 15 to 25 ppb extending to the north limit of the grid. The east and west ends and parts of the north and southwest grid limits of the anomaly belt remain open for further expansion of the anomaly. Additionally, south of the east-west anomaly another cluster of contiguous samples carrying a span of elevated gold values exceeding 15 ppb to 6082 ppb, the highest value detected on the grid. This area is 300 meters wide and up to 300 meters long in the north-south direction. The west, east, and south sides of this anomalous area are also open.
Arsenic values in the soil typically rise and fall with gold values indicating that they belong to the gold mineralization event in the underlying bedrock. In the long stretches of background (1-15 ppb) gold values along any sample line, arsenic values usually remains below 30 parts per million (ppm). However, in samples exceeding 15 ppb gold the levels of arsenic quickly rise to hundreds of ppm. These increased arsenic levels indicate that even lower values of gold from 15 to 25 ppb are related to mineralization and should be considered anomalous for exploration purposes. The highest arsenic value of 765 ppm occurs with the highest gold value of 6,082 ppb. Several other elements such as copper, zinc, lead antimony, molybdenum, and cobalt have weaker positive correlations with gold.
The gold values in the survey range from 1 part per billion (ppb) to 6,082 ppb or 6 ppm. The percentages of the various ranges of gold values in the total sample population are as follows.
- Gold values of 1 to 15 ppb – 41% of the population, background values
- Values of >15 to 25 ppb – 24% of the population, low anomalous values
- Values of >25 to 50 ppb – 18% of the population, moderately anomalous
- Values of >50 to 100 ppb – 9% of the population, good anomaly
- Values of >100 ppb – 3% of the population, very good anomaly
The soil collected on the grid is indigenous to the bed rock and is not from weathered, transported glacial till or outwash. Therefore, the gold in the soil is relatively close to its bedrock mineralization source. The east-west belt of gold appears to be largely independent of topographic influence and likely reflects a mineralized trend in the bedrock. Outcrops are sparse on the Dime claims and Stina's tentative plans include trenching to bedrock, ground geophysics, and further soil sampling for the next field season directed towards drilling. Sampling will detail and expand the present grid and continue further exploration in areas of interest elsewhere on the claim block.
The geology of the Ten Mile Creek area, with its numerous gold anomalies and placer occurrences, is composed of Jurassic or Cretaceous intrusive and volcanic rocks within Paleozoic metamorphic rocks. This lithologic series is known as the Tintina Belt that extends for hundreds of miles across the Yukon and Alaska and contains numerous gold occurrences including the Pogo deposit. Much of the gold mineralization appears to be directly or indirectly related to the presence of Mesozoic acid to intermediate intrusive-volcanic rocks. The Tintina Belt is currently one of most important gold exploration areas in North America and the Dime claim block, with its promising gold anomalies, is part of it.
A map of the soil sampling results is available on the website at www.stinaresources.com as a party of this online news release. http://www.stinaresources.com/soils.jpg
There has been insufficient exploration to define a Mineral Resource on the Kodiak Property, and it is uncertain as to whether, or not, further exploration will result in the discovery of a Mineral Resource on the property. Ed Ullmer, P. Geo of Westminster, CO. is a designated Qualified Person for the Company and was responsible in part for the, preparation, amendments and review of this news release.
We will be at the PDAC Trade Show in Toronto from March 7 – 10, 2010. Our booth number is 3333, near the Underworld booth.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Rod Sinn, President