Vancouver, B.C., April 19th, 2011. Empire Mining Corporation (EPC: TSX-V) ("Empire") is pleased to announce that a third drill rig has commenced drilling on the Demirtepe target at the Bursa Project in Turkey. On January 18, 2011 Empire announced a significant new discovery in the first hole drilled at Demirtepe, which intersected 47.35 meters of 2.02% Copper, 0.96g/t Gold and 21.64g/t Silver including 8 meters of 9.1% Copper, 4.68g/t Gold and 95.3g/t Silver.
The original 4 hole scout-drilling program at Bursa-Demirtepe was expanded following the announcement of the discovery-hole with an additional 10,000 meters of diamond drilling and accelerated with additional rigs.
The size of the mineralized system at Demirtepe, as indicated by the 1,500 by 500 meter soil geochemical anomalies, geophysical anomalies, and scattered old workings suggests that the skarn mineralization encountered in the discovery drill-hole, and probably the target of ancient miners, is driven by a deeper porphyry system. The current drilling is focused on obtaining continuity within the skarns and drilling into the porphyry intrusion.
Further IP/Resistivity geophysical work is scheduled to start on the 23rd of April at Demirtepe. The IP/resistivity survey previously carried out used 100 metre dipole/dipole spacing; enough to penetrate approximately 200 meters. The responses obtained correspond to skarn hosted sulphides, but were unable to identify deeper porphyry potential. The 200 meter spacing will permit greater depth penetration to identify the porphyry target area modeled from geological interpretation. Two lines totaling 6 km are planned. A map of the proposed IP/Resistivity work plotted against a Magnetics survey and a copper geochemistry soil survey can be viewed at the following link:
http://www.empireminingcorp.com/i/nr/2011-04-19-magmap.pdf
Empire is earning a 65% interest in Bursa from Anatolia Minerals Development Limited.
Empire's Qualified Person, David C. Cliff, BSc (Hons), MIMMM, C Eng, FGS, also Empire's President & CEO, has reviewed and approved the content of this news release.