East Asia Drills In Indonesia

Drilling is off to a good start at East Asia Minerals’ (EAS-V, EAIAF-O) Miwah gold project in northern Sumatra Island, Indonesia, with the first two holes showing some near-surface mineralization.

Starting at 11 metres depth, one hole returned 57.1 metres grading 1.71 grams gold per tonne, including 38.3 metres grading 2.78 grams gold.

The second hole returned 158 metres grading 1.71 grams gold, including 66 metres at 3.29 grams gold, starting at 8.3 metres depth.

Both holes were drilled from the same drill pad, located about 200 metres east of the western end of the Main Miwah gold zone.

The first hole was drilled towards the east to 159 metres, but was cut off by a northerly trending structure.

The second hole was aimed towards the west to 200 metres.

Mineralization in both holes is still open and contiguous to surface, where several rock-sawn samples returned positive assays, including 14 metres grading 9.22 grams gold near the first hole and 18 metres of 2.86 grams gold near the second hole.

East Asia has completed a third drill hole from the same drill pad but hasn’t received the results for it yet.

And a fourth hole is currently in the making. It’s being drilled to validate a historic hole which returned 71 metres grading 1.42 grams gold per tonne in the 1990s. This new hole is being extended farther than the historic hole to test the westerly trending structure — the Camp Fault — to the Main Miwah gold zone.

In 1997, another company drilled 11 holes on the project totalling about 3,000 metres.

East Asia says that based on historical data, which is not compliant with National Instrument 43-101 standards, the previous explorer said the project had the potential to host 100 million tonnes grading 1.1 to 1.2 grams gold per tonne. However, the company has reviewed the historical data and now hypothesizes that the earlier drilling was done parallel to a higher-grade structure (higher than about 5 grams gold per tonne) at surface.

And because of that, East Asia is looking for greater mineralized tonnage and significantly higher overall grades once it gains a better understanding of the geology of the project through its exploration program.

So far, Miwah has two components: a thick tabular zone that is 1,200 metres long, 300-400 metres wide, and 200 metres thick, and vertical feeder zones that are beneath and cut through the tabular zone.