Mantle hits zinc in Akie stepout

Vancouver — Stepout drilling by Mantle Resources (MTS-V, MTSZF-O) on its Akie zinc project, in northeastern B.C., hints at the expansion potential of the Main Cardiac Creek zone.

Hole 42 cut 11.3 metres (from 667 metres down-hole depth) grading 13.8% zinc, 3.2% lead and 21 grams silver per tonne.

The stepout hole was collared about 175 metres north, along plunge from hole 32, which cut a 19.6-metre true-width section of 12% zinc, 2.7% lead and 22 grams silver in 2005.

The company also recently released results from hole 43, which cored 27.6 metres (from 572 metres depth) of 12.2% zinc, 3% lead and 20 grams silver, including an 11.9-metre interval of 15.6% zinc, 4.3% lead and 29 grams silver.

Mineralization at Akie is sedimentary exhalative (Sedex) zinc-lead-silver occurring at the base of the Gunsteel Formation, a suite of Upper Devonian shales and siltstones within the southern Kechika Trough of the Paleozoic Selwyn sedimentary basin.

Previous work by Inmet Mining (IMN-T, IEMMF-O) in the mid-1990s formed the basis of a historic inferred resource estimate (based on four widely spaced holes) of 13 million tonnes grading 8.5% zinc, 1.5% lead and 13.2 grams silver over an average true thickness of 6.3 metres.

Inmet’s historical estimate occurs within a 50-million-tonne body of massive sphalerite-galena-pyrite-barite at Akie.

Mantle points out that the Cirque deposit, held through a joint venture between Teck Cominco (TCK.B-T, TCK-N) and Korea Zinc, is located about 20 km northwest of Akie and hosted in similar Gunsteel Formation rocks. Cirque has a historic resource estimate of over 40 million tonnes at 7.8% zinc, 2.2% lead and 48 grams silver.

The Main Cardiac Creek zone has been tested along 1,500 metres of strike, over 700 metres downdip, and shows an average true thickness of about 20 metres. The junior is optimistic on its expansion potential.

Mantle was previously earning in to the Akie project from Ecstall Resources, which it acquired through a takeover bid earlier this year.

In late 2006, Lundin Mining (LUN-T, LMC-N) took down a 3.7-million-unit private-placement financing in Mantle to hold just under 10% of the junior.

Based on its 67.4 million shares outstanding, the company posts a market capitalization of $73 million. The stock has a 52-week trading range of 50-$1.55.