VANCOUVER, June 6, 2011 /CNW/ - Radius Gold Inc. (TSX-V: RDU) is pleased to report that drilling is underway at its Sixty Mile project in west-central Yukon, 75 kilometres west of Dawson City at the Canada/U.S. border. Five thousand meters of drilling are planned to test the epithermal gold targets in the Sixty Mile river valley.
In its 2010 exploration program Radius made two bedrock gold discoveries - the Graben fault zone and the Thrust fault zone - while searching for the source of the extensive placer gold that has been produced from the stream and river beds of the Sixty Mile gold district. Both target areas have the size potential to host significant gold deposits, and it is the aim of this year's drilling to confirm the economic potential of these gold discoveries.
This first program will focus first on the Graben zone, an eight-kilometre-long belt of strongly altered Carmacks volcanic rocks associated with a northeast-trending half graben fault that juxtaposes altered volcanics against a much older belt of schistose rocks. An epithermal-style gold system was discovered in the 1980's in the altered andesites. In 2010, Radius drilled two holes testing the volcanic rocks proximal to the fault zone. Both holes returned highly anomalous gold values over +50-metre intervals with narrower intervals of potentially ore-grade material (see Radius news release dated November 16, 2010).
In 1988 previous workers drill tested the Per mineral occurrence which is located in the valley three kilometres to the southwest of Radius's 2010 holes and hosted by similar andesites. This short program returned a best interval of 10.5 m grading 8.7 g/t Au (Radius has not been able to verify this intersection because the drill hole collar has been lost). Here the andesites were silicified, unlike the rocks in the lower grade intercepts obtained by Radius.
Therefore, Zonge International, Inc., a geophysical contractor based out of Tuson, Arizona, has started a Controlled Source Audio Frequency Magnetotelluric (CSAMT) and Induced Polarization (IP) survey, with the aim of identifying siliceous, possibly gold-bearing bodies hosted in the andesites. A grid-based auger drill program is also underway, designed to collect bedrock samples beneath mined gravels and overburden for geochemical analysis and alteration studies to help focus the drilling.
A second rig will be mobilized to the property to drill test the second, thrust related gold discovery.
Background
The road accessible property, which consists of 899 Yukon quartz claims covering approximately 180 sq km and 30 Alaska State claims covering 14 sq km, straddles the Yukon/Alaska border. Radius has a 100-per-cent interest in the property through staking and various option/earn-in agreements with several underlying property owners, extensively the placer miners in the region.
Qualified Person
Roger Hulstein, a member of the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of British Columbia and a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, is responsible for the accuracy of the technical information in this news release, and for overseeing the design and execution of Radius's Sixty Mile exploration program.
About Radius
Radius has been exploring for gold in Latin America for nearly a decade, and has assembled interests in a portfolio of promising gold projects throughout the region, including carried stakes in two small-scale developing gold projects in Guatemala and Nicaragua. Radius also has a number of 100% owned exploration plays, including the HB property in Guatemala and several properties in the Rackla Belt and Sixty Mile placer gold district in the Yukon.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"Simon Ridgway"
Simon Ridgway, President & CEO
Investor relations: Ralph Rushton / Erin Ostrom
Symbol: TSXV-RDU; OTCBB-RDUFF
Shares Issued: 80.1-million
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
Forward-Looking Statement
Some of the statements in this news release contain forward-looking information that involves inherent risk and uncertainty affecting the business of Radius Gold Inc. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statement.
