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| | Fri Jul 16, 2004
Announces the Discovery of New Copper-Gold Porphyry
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| | Stealth Minerals announces the discovery of New Toodoggone Copper-Gold Porphyry Prospect the Sophia
Stealth Minerals has a 100% interest in the newly discovered Sophia porphyry showing. It is a new mineral occurrence with no evidence of previous exploration activity. The showing is located east of the 6,000-metre-long Sickle Creek-Griz epithermal high-grade gold-silver discovery made last year by the Company.
This Sophia porphyry showing outcrops at 1,150 metre elevation while the epithermal gold and silver system to the west ranges in surface outcrop from 1,650 to 1,925 metres elevation. The contact of the intrusion and overlying Takla volcanics is visible. The porphyry showing is hosted within a magnetite bearing monzonite phase of the Jurassic aged Black Lake Plutonic suite, which hosts other major copper-gold porphyry systems in the Toodoggone camp, such as the 50,000 tonne per day open pit Kemess South Mine controlled by Northgate Minerals (TSE: NGX). The showing is exposed over a 40 metre by 10 metre area and is characterized by strong and pervasive, fracture controlled K-Spar potassic alteration. The intrusion is cut by three directions of sheeted and stockwork style quartz-magnetite-chalcopyrite bearing veins and veinlets ranging from 0.1 to 10 cm spaced at 20-50 cm. The latest set is a fine quartz stockwork of 1 mm veinlets. Pyrite is common, up to 10%, associated with weak shearing and moderate sericite development.
The Company collected four character rock samples from the leached outcrop and subjected them to PIMA analysis and geochemical assay. The assay was performed primarily to determine the presence of gold in the intrusion. The gold assays ranged between 30 ppb to 220 ppb and averaged 150 ppb. The copper values ranged between 50 ppb and 450 ppb and averaged 165 ppb. The mineral and alteration assemblages identified to date are pyrite and chalcopyrite with quartz, sericite, K-Spar, magnetite, chlorite and illite.
A 25 metre chip sample comprised of 25 one metre contiguous chip samples from the outcrop is in for assay.
A soil and induced polarization grid has been established with a 3,200 metre north west trending baseline with 2,000 metre cross lines at 200 metre centres. The showing is in an area that is dominantly thick overburden covered with dense vegetation. No other outcrop has been found to date.
An airborne radiometric survey flown by the Geological Survey of Canada (GSC) last summer revealed two thorium-potassium anomalies in an area of thick overburden, one 1,700 metres to the southwest and one 1,200 metres to the southeast of the outcrop. The thorium-potassium anomalies are 1,100 metres apart from centre to centre. The magnetic data from the GSC survey also identified a magnetic-high approximately 1,200 metres by 800 metres in dimensions, which is located 500 metres due south of the outcrop and is flanked by the thorium-potassium radiometric anomalies 1,000 metres to the south and 1,200 metres to the southeast. A major northwest trending fault occurs between the thorium-potassium radiometric anomalies and is about 100 metres west of the magnetic-high. The fault continues to the northwest and southeast and could play a role in the control and location of other mineral showings on the Stealth's Toodoggone property.
The Company believes that Sophia is an important discovery in its own right. However, the location of the intrusion may be fundamentally important with respect to genesis of the high-grade gold and silver mineralization found in outcrop in the Sickle Creek, Griz, 570 Veins, North Ridge and the Kevin areas, which are located 3,500 metres to the west at an elevation between 1,625 and 1,925 metres. This large-scale epithermal system is characterized by advanced argillic-alunite-pyrophyllite alteration evolving downward to silica-sericite-argillic alteration containing the bonanza grade precious metal assays as announced in 2003. The system progresses down to gold and silver bearing quartz carbonate veins at its lowest exposure in surface outcrop. The identification of a gold and copper bearing porphyry system down section of the epithermal mineralization increases confidence in the evolving model of the metallogenic history of the under explored eastern portion of the Toodoggone volcanic-intrusive complex.
At the end of the 2003 field season, Company geologists believed that the Sickle Creek to Kevin area was an important epithermal gold-silver discovery. What was lacking, however, was clear evidence of structural control of the mineralization and the absence of a heat source that drove the whole system. The data compiled and presented by the GSC airborne survey has raised the level of confidence that the epithermal system is structurally controlled and it may be the northern part a 20 kilometre long corridor of alteration and mineralization. The location of the Sophia intrusion could explain the heat source for the epithermal mineralization, at least in its northern portion. In addition, the orientation and dip of the four epithermal gold and silver bearing veins discovered in the 570 area further supports the view that the Sophia showing may be fundamental to the location of the large-scale Sickle Creek hydrothermal system.
The Sickle Creek and Sophia discoveries have enabled Stealth geologists to develop a coherent geological model with potential application in other areas of the Toodoggone controlled by the Company. These new discoveries are providing solid geological support for a metallogenic model that suggests a continuum of mineralization styles. This continuum is initiated by intrusive related copper-gold-magnetite porphyry deposits of lower Jurassic age at low elevation, which may be directly related to and cause the slightly younger up section, high-grade precious metal deposits of low and high sulphidation styles.
Fieldwork is under the supervision of Dave Kuran who is a "qualified person". Assaying was performed by Assayers Canada of Vancouver, BC.
Bill McWilliam
Chief Executive Officer
Stealth Minerals Limited
Phone: 604-999-0391
Email: bill@stealthminerals.ca
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