VANCOUVER, April 12 /CNW/ - Radius Gold Inc. (TSX-V: RDU) is pleased to announce that the 2011 exploration program has commenced at the Company's 100% owned Sixty Mile Project located North of Dawson City, Yukon Territory near the Yukon/Alaska border.
In 2010 Radius made two bedrock gold discoveries while drill testing various geological targets 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. These discoveries have been named "The Graben Fault Zone" and the "Thrust Fault Zone" (see detailed descriptions below). Both target areas have the size potential to host very significant gold deposits, and it is the aim of this year's exploration program to confirm the economic potential of these gold discoveries.
The Graben Fault Zone
The Graben Fault Zone is an 8 kilometer long belt of strongly altered Carmacks volcanic rocks associated with a northeast trending half graben fault that juxtaposes these altered volcanics against a much older belt of schistose rocks. Radius drilled two holes testing the volcanic rocks proximal to the fault zone. Both holes returned highly anomalous gold values over + 50 m intervals with narrower intervals of potentially ore grade material (6.55 m @ 1.65 g/t Au). These were very encouraging results for a first stage drill program.
The broad Sixty Mile river valley has been extensively placer mined. A grid based auger drill program is presently underway designed to collect bedrock samples beneath mined gravels and overburden for geochemical analysis and alteration studies. Zonge Engineering & Research Organization, Inc. has been contracted to carry out concurrent Controlled Source Audio Frequency Magnetotelluric (CSAMT) and Induced Polarization (IP) geophysical surveys.
A contract for a minimum 5000 m Diamond drilling program has been signed with Kluane Drilling Limited of Whitehorse. Drilling is scheduled to commence on June 1 and with the results of the above studies in hand management is confident we will have the tools to target the heart of this extensive epithermal gold system.
The Thrust Fault Zone
The Thrust Fault Zone is located on the hillsides on the northwestern side of the valley. Last year's program identified gold mineralization in quartz veins and veinlets hosted by a package of brittle, siliclastic metamorphic rocks that have been disrupted by a series of thrust faults. Gold mineralization appears to be preferentially hosted by the more quartz rich beds which are up to 30 to 40 meters thick, with at least two mineralized beds present. Radius' geologists believe that this mineralization is the source of the rich placer gold deposits in the creeks which drain this hillside.
The target area has a strike length of 8 km and width of 3 km. Some target areas defined during last year's extensive geochemical and geophysical program will be tested this spring prior to the arrival of a second drill rig to the property in August 2011.
Radius is targeting a substantial bulk tonnage gold system on the Thrust Fault Target. Last year's drilling (4 holes) while successful in discovering the source of the placer gold in the creeks, intersected grades in the 0.3 to 0.5 g/t Au range across the thickness of these beds (20 m to 40 m). This year the challenge is to find areas within this mineralized package with at least double that grade, which would indicate the economic significance of this discovery.
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' 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 two 100% owned exploration plays, the HB property in Guatemala and the Sixty Mile property in the Yukon Territory.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
"Simon Ridgway"
Simon Ridgway, President & CEO
Investor relations: Ralph Rushton / Erin Ostrom
Symbol: TSXV-RDU; OTCBB-RDUFF
Shares Issued: 79.8-million
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.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
