Slam cashes up to fund exploration in Ontario and New Brunswick

Slam Exploration (SXL-V) has topped up its treasury with a series of private placement financings as it prepares to resume exploration drilling early in the New Year on the Reserve Creek gold project in northern Ontario and the Silverjack base metal project in New Brunswick.

The most recent financing brought in $1 million by issuing 5 million flow-through units priced at 21 cents each. Each unit is comprised of one share and a half-share warrant exercisable at 25 cents in the first year or 40 cents in the second year.

“This will bring our treasury to over $5 million and fund major drilling programs in 2011,” said Mike Taylor, Slam’s president, in a prepared statement.

Assays are currently pending for the first nine holes drilled at Reserve Creek in a follow-up winter program designed to test the potential of the historic Williamson gold deposit in the Fort Hope area of northwestern Ontario, 150 km east of Pickle Lake.

The Williamson gold zone was originally discovered in 1941 and drilled. Slam targeted the Williamson in two separate drilling campaigns in 2003 and 2008, completing 13 holes. It confirmed the zone extended over a strike length of 350 metres and to a depth of 140 metres.

This past summer, Slam further tested the Williamson zone with three tightly spaced holes that undercut one another from the same setup very close to the zone. It’s not surprising that all three holes intersected visible gold mineralization close to surface.

Results included: 2.8 metres of 7.4 grams gold per tonne in hole 14, the uppermost hole; 30 metres of core averaging 5.48 grams, including a 0.3-metre section of 107 grams in hole 15; and 47.5 metres core length averaging 6.58 grams, with individual assays up to 274 grams across 0.5 metre in hole 16, the steepest hole.

According to Slam, the true widths are unknown but the zone is steeply dipping. Holes 14, 15 and 16 were drilled on the same section but in the opposite direction as hole 9, a 2008 hole. Hole 9 cut the lower part of the zone beneath the three newer holes, intersecting 1.5 metres of 4.79 grams at a depth of 112 metres downhole.

The gold is associated with pyrite-pyrrhotite sulphide mineralization and quartz stringers in a silicified magnetite-rich tuff unit that is up to 20 metres thick.

The first six holes (holes 17-22) of the current winter drilling campaign were drilled on sections 15 metres east and 15 metres west of the setup for holes 14, 15 and 16. Slam reports that the newly drilled holes all hit pyrite-pyrrhotite mineralization in silicified tuffs over core lengths ranging from 3.5 to 34.5 metres, with specks of visible gold observed in five of the six holes.

Three additional holes were drilled on 2 sections more than 200 metres to the west. After completing hole 25, drilling was temporarily suspended on December 17 for the holiday break.

Additional assays are also pending from a 3,000-metre drilling campaign underway on the Silverjack project in northern New Brunswick. Recent drilling has extended a near-surface, silver-enriched base metal zone to a strike length of 110 metres. Slam is testing the zone on 20-metre step-outs, with generally two holes per section.

The latest results include: 6.9 metres of 1.09% copper, 3.15% zinc, 2.7% lead and 111 grams silver, starting at depth of 54 metres in hole 24; and 9.6 metres grading 1.53% copper, 2.89% zinc, 2.53% lead and 231 grams silver in hole 26, beginning at 45 metres downhole.

Assays are pending for an additional 10 holes that were mainly drilled on soil targets extending up to 1,600 metres along strike from the Silverjack zone. The recently expanded Silverjack project comprises 160 wholly owned claims plus 13 claims under option for a total package of 37 sq. km.

The property is adjacent to Slam’s Nash Creek property, which contains an indicated resource of 7.8 million tonnes grading 2.72% zinc, 0.55% lead and 18.3 grams silver, plus an inferred 1.2 million tonnes averaging 2.66% zinc, 0.52% lead and18 grams silver.

Slam has approximately 170.4 million shares outstanding and is trading at 24 cents in a 52-week range of 4-26.5 cents.