Vancouver — Wide, high-grade gold values from a second-phase trenching program on the Jumping Josephine (JJ) project in southeastern B.C.’s Rossland-Republic trend gave Astral Mining (AST-V, ASMGF-O) a boost in the market recently.
Infill trenching on the Main zone returned up to 7 metres of 31.2 grams gold per tonne in trench 2A, including a 1-metre interval of 133.9 grams gold.
The infill program, conducted at 10-metre intervals, followed initial trenching earlier this year done at 50-metre spacings across the structure. Fifteen trenches completed on the Main zone traced the gold-mineralized quartz stockwork over 270 metres of strike; it remains open to the southwest and northeast.
Further trenching and initial drill-testing of the zone is planned for spring.
Gold mineralization is associated with a northeast-trending shear zone comprised of quartz stockworks, vein breccias, ladder veining and parallel sheeted veins within granodiorites. A number of new gold showings were discovered on the project area in 2003, when logging road construction exposed mineralized rock.
The 118-sq.-km JJ claim package includes several small-scale past-producers in the historic Bonanza-Pass (Granville Mountain) mining camp where high-grade gold and silver production came from a number of quartz veins between 1912 and 1964.
Astral is earning a 60% interest in JJ from Kootenay Gold (KTN-V) for option payments of $100,000, exploration spending of $2.1 million and issuance of 400,000 shares over five years.
Shares of Astral Mining rallied about 56% on the results to close up 17 at 47 apiece on very strong volume. Kootenay Gold edged up 7 to close at $1.12 per share.
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