Aurelian cuts more gold at Condor (February 02, 2004)

Vancouver — Aurelian Resources () has tabled encouraging results from drilling completed late last year at the Condor project in southeastern Ecuador.

The company sunk 14 diamond drill holes on two of its 15 bedrock gold prospects. Six of the holes were drilled beneath pits 1, 2 and 3 at the Aguas Mesas Sur zone, and eight tested a 95-metre-long artisanal trench exposure known as the Aguas Mesas Norte zone. The two zones are about 1 km apart.

The best values occurred in hole 12, which returned 35.2 metres averaging 4.91 grams gold starting at 52.3 metres down-hole. The intersection cut a quartz-vein stockwork and vein zone and was drilled at a dip of minus 46 from east to west. The true thickness of the zone is at least 17 metres.

Visible gold was observed in the core of holes 1, 7 and 12.

Other highlights include the following:

— Hole 7 cut 5 metres averaging 9.8 grams gold per tonne starting at 49.7 metres down-hole, including a 1.9-metre section of 21.94 grams gold.

— Hole 13 cut 2.1 metres of 3.53 grams gold starting at 44.6 metres down-hole, including a 0.75-metre interval of 7.47 grams gold.

— Hole 14 cut 5.8 metres averaging 5.74 grams gold starting at 50.3 metres down-hole, including a 3.3-metre section of 8.27 grams gold.

Six holes contained no significant values.

All the holes encountered wide intersections of pyritized andesite with geochemically anomalous gold and silver values. Higher-grade gold (plus or minus silver) was confined to zones of quartz veining, quartz stockwork and silicification. The wall rocks are altered and host variable amounts of epidote, magnetite, chlorite, calcite, sericite, clay, pyrite and silica. The mineralization appears to be epithermal and relates to faulting and regional tectonism.

Aurelian’s initial drill program was designed to test geology beneath shallow artisanal mine workings. This year, the company intends to perform more pitting and trenching in both the Aguas Mesas Norte and Aguas Mesas Sur areas, the goal being to extend mineralized zones and identify structural controls to high-grade gold mineralization. In addition, the junior has commissioned fluid-inclusion studies to determine the depth at which the mineralization formed.

Six hundred metres northeast of Aguas Mesas North, Aurelian identified a 15-metre-wide creek exposure that assayed 4.18 grams gold and 258 grams silver over 1 metre.

Aurelian also reports that numerous quartz float blocks were encountered east of Aguas Mesas Norte, when drill access was being constructed. These float blocks suggest further veining in the higher ground to the east.

Aurelian has moved its drill rig 2 km from the Aguas Mesas site and intends to test the Bonza and Las Peas targets in February.

The Bonza target was last drilled in 1997-98 by Australian-based Climax Mining. The best drill interval Climax reported was 115 metres averaging 1.58 grams gold per tonne.

Recent trenching has extended this zone of mineralization, and Aurelian believes the Bonza and Las Peas zones represent one continuous deposit of bedrock mineralization. The Las Peas prospect is an area of active workings where artisanal miners are extracting gold via shallow shafts and adits. This zone was not known to Climax.

Aurelian extended and resampled one of Climax’s old trenches at Bonza. The trench trends east-west and cuts across the apparent strike of the zone. It returned an average grade of 4.08 grams gold per tonne (uncut) over 94 metres. This includes a 2-metre section of 123 grams gold in quartz stockwork. If this assay is cut to 10 grams gold per tonne, then the interval averages 1.67 grams gold.

Mineralization is hosted in argillically altered and silicified andesite volcanics, with variable disseminated pyrite that is intersected by quartz stockwork veining and breccias. The zone remains open to the east and west.

The junior dug several short trenches in the area close to active and abandoned mine workings at La Peas. A chalcedonic quartz and rhodochrosite vein that is being mined was sampled in a shallow pit. It averaged 21.91 grams gold and 77.98 grams silver from five adjacent 1-metre chip samples.

Two other trenches yielded 1.65 grams gold over 20 metres and 0.97 gram per tonne over 28 metres. Both trenches ended in mineralization. These trenches are west and northwest of a previous drill hole, just north of a half-kilometre gap that never was drill-tested. These trenches are 475 metres south of the trench at the Bonza zone.

Soil sampling and pitting in 1997-98 defined a 2-km-long gold anomaly that surrounds the Las Penas and Bonza site. Aurelian plans to test this zone for grade and continuity.