Vancouver — A letter agreement between
The companies plan to explore a newly recognized belt of volcanic and associated intrusive rocks believed to have potential for hosting high-sulphidation gold systems.
Rimfire President David Caulfield says his company is pleased to team up with Barrick, “an acknowledged world expert” of these types of deposits.
The terms of the preliminary agreement call for Barrick and Rimfire to form a 50-50 joint venture to explore the Kizmet project, 95 km southeast of the historic mining camp. The Atlin region hosts numerous mineral deposits and occurrences, as well as some active placer-gold mines.
Rimfire picked up ground in the region in 2003 and early 2004, after mapping and age-dating a Cretaceous-aged belt of volcanic and associated intrusive rocks, with coincident strong, gold-silver-arsenic geochemical signature, as noted in government geochemical silt-sampling.
Rimfire saw geological similarities to its Thorn property, also in the Atlin region. This project is being explored by 51% partner
Early this year, the junior companies reported the discovery of a new zone of gold-silver-copper mineralization at Thorn. The discovery hole intersected 56.1 metres grading 1.27 grams gold and 16.7 grams silver per tonne, plus 0.19% copper, including a 3.6-metre interval of 4.4 grams gold, 65.3 grams silver and 0.65% copper.
Rimfire acquired additional targets totalling 185 sq. km, then carried out reconnaissance exploration over four target areas, with “positive results.”
The project caught the interest of Barrick, which, as a first step, must pay $75,000 to Rimfire and add claims totalling 680 sq. km to the Kizmet joint venture. The major can boost its interest to 65% by spending US$1.2 million on exploration over three years, and up to 75% by spending at least US$500,000 per year prior to the feasibility stage.
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