Trading Symbol:
SLI
(TSX Venture Exchange)
EKL
(Frankfurt
Exchange)
SELSF
(U.S.
Clearing Symbol)
News Release
2008-03
January
29, 2008
NEWS
RELEASE
Vilcoro Gold Property, Peru
–
Gold Zones Expanded
Lori McClenahan, President of St. Elias
Mines Ltd. (“St. Elias”), and
Marcus
Johnson, President of Geneva Resources Inc.
(“Geneva”), are pleased to announce results from a December program
of rock sampling (107 samples collected) and soil sampling (164 samples
collected) on the Vilcoro Gold Property (the “Property”) in
north-central Peru.
This December
program has resulted in two previously-known zones (Zone 3 and Zone 7) being
expanded.
Geneva
has an option to earn a 66% interest
in the Property from St. Elias.
To date, a total of 742 rock samples and 858 soil
samples have been collected at Vilcoro, mainly from a gold-mineralized area
known as the “Main Trend”, which is 1.8 km long, up to several
hundred meters wide, and spans a vertical interval of about 400 meters.
The Main Trend consists of 7 well-defined
clusters of gold-in rock anomalies (Zones 1 to 7) as well as numerous isolated
gold anomalies.
Most
of the rock samples collected in December were 3m-long channel samples taken
from trenches excavated at the east end of the Main Trend (Zone 3) and the west
end of the Main Trend (Zone 7).
Zone 3 has now been expanded to a size of about 200 meters by 200 meters
and is defined by 52 rock samples with an average grade of 210 ppb gold.
Zone 7 has now been expanded to a size
of about 190 meters by 110 meters and is defined by 54 rock samples with an
average grade of 270 ppb gold.
This
includes 33 contiguous samples from a 112-m-long trench averaging 275 ppb gold.
A geophysical orientation survey is
planned in the near future in advance of a drill program to evaluate the Main
Trend.
The technical information contained in this news
release has been verified by, John Brophy, P.Geo., a Canadian geologist
residing in Peru
,
who is a qualified person as defined in “National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral
Properties.
”
The
Vilcoro Gold Property comprises 1,600 hectares and lies along the same
geological belt of Tertiary rocks that hosts many multi-million-ounce deposits
in northern Peru such as Newmont’s Yanacocha Mine (+40 million oz gold)
and Barrick’s Pierina deposit (8 million oz. gold).
The Property is favourably located
adjacent to the claim block that covers the Lagunas
Norte
mine (+9 million oz gold) recently put into production by Barrick
Gold in the Alto Chicama mining district of central Peru
..
For
additional information on St. Elias and its projects, please visit us at
www.steliasmines.com or call 1-888-895-5522 (toll free US and Canada
).
ST. ELIAS MINES LTD.
(signed “Lori McClenahan”)
Lori McClenahan,
President
The TSX
Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the
adequacy or the accuracy of the contents of this document.
This News Release
may contain forward-looking statements including, but not limited to, comments
regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological
interpretations, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking
statements address future events and conditions and therefore involve inherent
risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those
currently anticipated in such statements