Partners find more veins

Partners Eastmain Resources (ER-T) and Quebec government-owned Soquem have discovered six parallel gold-bearing quartz-tourmaline veins during stripping and drilling at their Clearwater property in northwestern Quebec.

The new veins, numbered 11 through 16, are immediately west of the O, P and Q veins, which are known to contain high-grade mineralization.

Channel sampling on vein 16, which is exposed at surface for 67 metres, averaged 21.3 grams gold per tonne over widths of 0.5-1 metre. One 0.9-metre channel, on (southernmost) vein 11, returned 355 grams gold. Vein 15 yielded 43.56 grams gold over 0.5 metre. The remaining veins returned generally about 1-3 grams gold over widths of 0.5-1 metre.

Ten holes tested for depth and strike extensions of known mineralization, and all but one intersected gold-bearing quartz-tourmaline veins. Two of the deeper holes cut up to 50.6 grams gold over widths of up to 5.6 metres. Generally, the holes returned 1-8 grams gold over widths of 0.5-1 metre.

The gold-bearing veins are in an area 1,200 metres long by 500 metres wide. Soquem plans to revise its resource estimate for this area in the first quarter of 2001.

At last count, the G, I and J veins hosted a resource of 544,000 tonnes grading 11.1 grams gold per tonne (8.7 grams cut-grade).

In 2001, the partners will carry out more stripping and drilling and explore the largely untested Cannard and Natel prospects.

In other news, Eastmain has closed a deal with Billiton. The British major bought 1 million Eastmain units at 70 apiece for net proceeds of $700,000. Each unit consists of one Eastmain share and half a share purchase warrant, with each whole warrant entitling the holder to buy another share at 80 within two years.

The funds will be used to complete surface exploration and drilling on Eastmain’s Railroad property, in the Bathurst camp of New Brunswick.