StrataGold hits new zone at Tassawini (October 16, 2006)

Vancouver — After recently marking the 1,000th drill hole (both historical and current) at its Tassawini project in northwestern Guyana, StrataGold (SGV-T, SAGDF-O) has hit a new gold zone.

The new discovery, dubbed Mine Creek, is located just 100 metres north of Tassawini West and was hit with four core holes intersecting a wide zone of gold mineralization in saprolite at shallow depths. Highlights include the following:

* 65.7 metres (from 18.3 metres depth) grading 1.9 grams gold per tonne in hole SD127, including a 13.2-metre interval of 3.95 grams gold; and

* a 25.3-metre section grading 3.36 grams gold within a broader 53.8-metre zone averaging 2.36 grams gold in hole SD128 (starting from about 9 metres depth).

The four Mine Creek discovery holes indicate a minimum 150-metre strike for the new zone that remains open in all directions. The zone also appears to have a minimum true width of about 50 metres, prompting StrataGold to line up additional drilling to test its extent.

Several recent holes just off the northern edge of Tassawini West intersected broad gold mineralized zones within the saprolite horizon, extending the known width of the zone by 25 metres. The drilling also confirms mineralization is structurally controlled within the hinge zone of an open, slightly overturned northeast-trending anticline that shallowly plunges to the southwest. The highest gold grades occur in the structure’s central hinge zone with additional mineralization discovered on a couple of sub-parallel northwest-dipping limbs. Tassawini West also remains open in all directions.

Drilling at Black Ridge returned wide gold-mineralized intervals in all three holes and confirmed the zone is open to the south.

Four holes spotted on the northeastern extension of Tassawini East all cut gold mineralization in the saprolite showing the zone remains open in that direction.

At Tassawini South, three core holes were drilled to check reverse-circulation hole results from earlier in the year. Two of the holes confirmed gold mineralization occurs in both the saprolite and bedrock.

Gold at Tassawini occurs in a highly weathered greenstone terrane of northeasterly trending and folded metasediments, with mineralization structurally controlled and associated with a hydrothermal graphite-carbonate-pyrite-arsenopyrite-pyrrhotite assemblage and quartz veins. The saprolite is rock that has been weathered in place to an almost clay consistency, forming a horizon at Tassawini extending to depths of at least 65 metres. Remnant structures and fabric, generally folded millimetre- to centimetre-scale quartz veins, are observed in the saprolite and may host some of the better gold grades at the deposit.