Crosshair Exploration & Mining Corp. has updated its exploration activities on its extensive portfolio of Newfoundland properties.
Crosshair has undertaken an aggressive exploration program on all of its Newfoundland projects in 2004, with a heavy emphasis on trenching and drilling. All work is being supervised by Timothy Froude, PGeo, general manager and chief geologist for the Newfoundland projects, and the qualified person as defined under the Canadian Securities Administrators' National Instrument 43-101. All preparation work and gold analysis have been carried out at Eastern Analytical Ltd. in Springdale, Nfld.
Wines Point Titan
In June, Crosshair completed an 11-hole (881.4-metre) phase 1 drill program. The drilling followed up previously released trench results including 15.25 grams per tonne Au over three metres (trench 7) and 9.41 g/t Au over 4.25 metres (trench 9). Management is looking forward to the receipt of all assay data including check analysis, before preparing a news release reporting the results of the drilling program.
Glenwood property
An airborne geophysical program and follow-up prospecting were completed in 2003 on this massive 37,000-hectare land position located in one of the most active exploration regions of Newfoundland. Recent prospecting efforts have identified two new zones of mineralization occurring over a 1.5-kilometre-long area. This area is highlighted by subcropping and outcropping brecciated, silicified sedimentary rocks containing polyphase quartz veining with disseminated pyrite and arsenopyrite that has returned up to 2.9 g/t Au from random grab samples. Trenching will commence on this new target later this month.
Several other targets identified from the airborne survey are being advanced to the trenching stage including an area of high gold grain counts in till (up to 60 grains of gold in a 10-kilogram sample) where newly exposed quartz veins will be trenched in preparation for sampling and mapping.
Management expects drill targets on this property will be ready for testing later in the 2004 field season.
South Golden Promise
The South Golden Promise claims are located contiguous with and along strike from the Rubicon Minerals/Placer Dome joint venture at Golden Promise, near the town of Badger in central Newfoundland. The Golden Promise joint venture features the Jaclyn zone which has returned drill intersections of up to 17.69 g/t Au over 2.30 metres. Crosshair has optioned four claim blocks from Rubicon Minerals that have demonstrated potential for further high-grade Jaclyn zone discoveries.
Ground surveys are currently under way on three of the four claims blocks, specifically blocks 1, 3 and 4. Three crews are actively sampling block 1 and four crews recently completed reconnaissance prospecting and geochemical (soil) sampling on blocks 3 and 4.
Block 1, which is contiguous with the Rubicon/Placer JV, was flown concurrently with the Rubicon/Placer airborne survey and indications are that several major and subsidiary structural features exist that warrant follow-up. As a result, block 1 is currently being covered in its entirety by a soil geochemical survey that should maximize the chance of discovering high-grade gold mineralization associated with any of the structural features highlighted by the airborne survey. Approximately 50 per cent of the geochemical survey has been completed and samples are currently being submitted to Eastern Analytical for analysis.
A total of four crews recently completed reconnaissance prospecting and soil geochemical surveying in several areas of blocks 3 and 4, 40 kilometres and 80 kilometres respectively southwest of block 1. Follow-up work was warranted to expand a zone of gold mineralization discovered by Rubicon last year that returned samples running up to three grams gold. No work was completed at that time to expand the showing due to the onset of winter. In excess of 500 soil samples and approximately 20 rock samples were collected and submitted for analysis with results pending.
Trenching programs are planned for the fall to identify drill targets after the results of the above programs have been received.
North Paul's Pond
A program of line cutting (22 kilometres), soil geochemistry, mapping and geophysics will commence shortly on the North Paul's Pond property in the eastern Botwood basin area to follow up on spectacular till sample results that were returned this spring. Several samples returned delicate gold grains including 293 gold grains in one sample of which 278 grains were delicate, indicating a very proximal source. Assays of panned concentrates returned up to 42 g/t Au. The till results define a corridor 800 metres wide and at least 1.5 kilometres in length that has not been previously tested by trenching or diamond drilling. Previous work in the immediate area by Noranda in the 1980s defined a zone of unsourced float grading up to 10.8 g/t Au. The work area lies directly along strike from the Goose prospect found by Noranda in 1988, which was tested with four short holes that returned up to 3.14 g/t Au over 2.5 metres. The Goose zone remains open in all directions and lies 2.7 kilometres to the southwest.