Southern Rio cuts more gold at 3Ts

The program was designed to extend and define the Ted vein mineralization, as well as provide data to calculate an inferred resource. At last report, the Ted Vein had been defined along a strike length of about 350 metres from surface to a depth of 120 metres. It has an estimated true width of up to 14 metres.

Any resources defined by current drilling will be added to those already defined on the nearby Tommy vein, which hosts an inferred resource of 470,700 tonnes grading 7.4 grams gold and 65.2 grams silver per tonne.

The junior explorer has so far completed eight holes, or 1,730 metres. Results from the first two holes were released in December 2003. The remaining holes tested the vein farther south and deeper than previous drilling. The results are listed below; true widths are estimated to be about 80% of the down-hole width listed.

— Hole 30 cut 3.75 metres averaging 3.34 grams gold and 194.4 grams silver per tonne starting at 147.3 metres down-hole.

— Hole 31 cut 8.28 metres averaging 6.32 grams gold and 145.1 grams silver starting at 186.06 metres down-hole. This included a 6-metre interval that averaged 8.31 grams gold and 181 grams silver.

— Hole 32 cut 4.38 metres of 1.13 grams gold and 50.2 grams silver starting at 137.5 metres down-hole.

— Hole 33 cut 16.54 metres averaging 1.04 grams gold and 23.8 grams silver starting at 192.34 metres down-hole.

— Hole 34 cut 8.83 metres averaging 0.45 gram gold and 7.8 grams silver starting at 190.17 metres down-hole.

— Hole 35 cut 1 metre averaging 3.83 grams gold and 7.7 grams silver starting at 187.66 metres down-hole.

The junior is especially encouraged by the gold grades in hole 31, one of the deepest intersections to date.

The Tommy and Ted veins are classical shear-veins hosted in a much larger epithermal alteration system. Mapping of the alteration suggests that the Tommy vein is displaced at its southern end and that the mineralized vein structure may continue across the fault.

The next phase of drilling will target the Tam and Taken properties, where prospecting during the summer and fall of 2003 identified several clusters of mineralized boulders with values of up to 84.3 grams gold and 1,032 grams silver per tonne. The highest-priority target is the Ringer zone, where mineralization is unusually rich in gold. Ringer also has a much higher gold-silver ratio than in any of the currently known zones.

At the Ringer zone, several large, angular boulders of quartz-vein material measured up to 2 metres in maximum dimension. The prospect is on the southwestern portion of the Taken property.

Southern Rio does not believe that these new boulders are sourced from any of the known outcropping veins. The most likely source is an undiscovered mineralized bedrock vein or veins up-ice to the southwest.