MONTREAL, CANADA--(Marketwire - Jan. 17, 2013) - AMEX EXPLORATION INC (News - Market indicators) ("The Company") is pleased to announced the beginning of a follow-up 2,000 meter drilling campaign of a new important large gold bearing polymetallic zone intersected in its 2011 drilling campaign on its 100% owned Perron Gold project. Hole PE-2011-4, the last hole of a 4 drill hole campaign that was executed in late 2011, intersected a wide zone of altered and mineralized felsic rhyolitic volcaniclastic unit that returned gold values of 0.41 g/t over 112.5 meters, including multiple higher gold grade sub-zones of up to 5.9 meters grading 2.4 g/t Au, including 2.5 meters at 4.54 g/t Au. (see press release of April, 12, 2012). The aim of this new drilling campaign is to test the down-dip and lateral extension of this highly potential polymetallic-gold zone that bears similarities with major polymetallic-gold mines of the Abitibi region of Quebec.
The Perron gold project is located near the village of Normetal in Abitibi. It consists of 108 adjacent claims for a total area of 4,260 hectares. Geologically, the project is located in the Archean Greenstone Belt of the Superior Lake structural province. The area is crossed by the regional NW-SE trending Normetal fault. This fault delineates a major structural corridor associated to massive sulphide deposits such as the nearby old polymetallic (Cu-Zn-Au-Ag) Normetal mine and the Zn Normetmar deposit.
From 1994 to 1996, the Perron property was explored for base metals by Falconbridge Ltd and from 1996 to 2000 by Ressources Minières Coleraine (now Amex) for gold. During this period, Coleraine drilled a total of 90 holes for nearly 18,000 meters and identified multiple gold-rich bearing structures. From the Coleraine work, gold mineralization on Perron has been identified in 3 principal parallel zones ranging from 300 meters to more than 1 kilometer in strike length. These zones are located near the contact between rhyolite units to the north and altered andesite units to the south. These units are closely associated to the regional NW-SE structural corridor of the Archean greenstone belt.
In early 2009, Amex produced a compilation based on a new interpretation of the various mineralized zones encountered in the previous drilling and a 43-101 compliant resource calculation, done by Jacques Marchand. QP, on Zone 3, indicated a total of 1.2 million tonnes with a grade of 1.86 g/t Au for a total of 69,907 ounces of gold in the inferred mineral resources category. (see Press Release of April 21 2009).
The 2011 phase of drilling had two main objectives: First, holes PE-11-01, 02, and 03 were drilled to test the western extensions of Zones 2 and 3. Hole PE-11-01 successfully intersected Zone 3 at a depth of about 150 meters (12 g/t Au over 1.4 m) and Hole PE-11-02 intersected both Zone 2 (0.9 g/t Au over 0.7 m) and Zone 3 (1.4 g/t Au over 1.4 m). Hole PE-11-03, located at 200 meters to the west of Hole PE-11-02, did not encounter any significant mineralization.
Second objective of this short campaign was to test at depth a totally different type of gold mineralization that was encountered in Hole PE-99-51 in 1999 (1,69 g/t Au, 14g/t Ag, 0,1% Cu and 0,6% Zn over 21,8m) and later described as a 'deformed volcanogenic precious metal bearing massive sulfide mineralization' (M.Sc Thesis by A. Laberge, UQAM, 2002) located in the eastern sector at about 1 km to the east of Zone 3. For this, Hole PE-11-04 was drilled at about 200 meters to the west of drill Hole PE-99-51 and intersected the same type of mineralization, but a lot more extensive as it is distributed over a core length of more than 100 meters compare to 20 meters in the later. As for, in hole PE-99-51, this polymetallic mineralization consist of disseminated sulfide (mainly pyrite with sphalerite and chalcopyrite) within an horizon of deformed polymictic felsic volcaniclastic unit associated with alteration minerals such as sericite chlorite and silica. Also to be noted that centimeter size Mn-garnets are widely spread and associated with this mineralization. According to A. Laberge (UQAM these 2002), these garnets grains are showing some zoning from an outer shell, rich in iron, while the center is manganese rich. These types of zoned Mn-garnets have been identified as characteristic of major deformed volcanogenic polymetallic gold mines of the Abitibi such as Doyon, Bousquet, Dumagami and Laronde. This new 2,000 meter follow-up drilling campaign, aim to test the extension of this new mineralized zone.
Jacques Trottier, PhD, President and CEO of Amex Exploration comments, "We are quite enthusiastic to start this follow-up drilling phase in order to further evaluate the economic potential of this exciting new polymetallic-gold zone at Perron. The identification of this new zone is changing dramatically the overall perspective of this property. Instead of having just 'Deformed Gold bearing Quartz-vein systems (as in for Zones1 to 3), we now have a mineralized geological setting that open doors to a potential world class deposit".
Drilling results will be released as soon as they become available.
Amex Exploration Inc. is a junior mining exploration company listed on the TSX Venture Exchange whose primary objective is to develop and bring into production viable gold and base metal deposits.
The technical information reported in this news release has been approved by Jacques Trottier, geol., Qualified Person as defined by Canadian NI 43-101
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