MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC--(Marketwired - Sept. 10, 2013) -
Editors' Note: There are three photos associated with this press release.
Uragold Bay Resources Inc. ("Uragold") (News - Market indicators), is pleased to announce that it has completed a successful scale testing/ sampling program in the washed gravels from the former 1960's placer gold dredging operation on the Rang Chaussegros claims of Uragold's Beauce Placer Gold property located in the municipality of Saint-Simon-les-Mines in the Beauce region of southern Quebec.
Explolab of Val d'Or, Quebec completed the program under the supervision of Robert Gagnon, P. Geo. The objectives were to evaluate the by-product content of essentially barren washed gravel for its aggregate content and to test for the presence of gold while scale testing the efficiency of the planned gold recovery methods for Uragold's upcoming bulk sampling and trial mining program, using essentially barren washed gravels from past gold mining operations.
Small Scale Placer Plant Test
Explolab supplied Uragold with a mobile facility/ unit for the sampling of the gravels. The unit worked as a portable placer wash plant composed of a grizzly, a trommel and a sluice with a maximum capacity of approximately 15 tons per hour. A mobile mechanic excavator was used to feed the plant. The excavator loaded approximately 10-15 tons per hour for a daily plant capacity of about 50-70 tons per day.
This allowed Uragold to evaluate the proposed plant configuration for the upcoming bulk sampling and trial mining program under a series of different operational conditions in order to validate some production assumptions.
Since the proposed configuration was successful in recovering gold, ranging in size from grains as small as 100 um up to a 1.5 mm gold nugget, from essentially barren clay, sand and gravels, the Corporation is confident that a similarly configured 100 + tons per hour placer plant, working in the pay gravel, is the best way to proceed going forward.
Aggregates
Local entrepreneurs have expressed an interest in acquiring the large volumes of aggregate (washed gravel) that will be generated by our mining activities, and since Uragold's surface rights allow the company, with the required permit, to sell the washed aggregate, the Corporation is now looking into maximizing its production credit through the sale of aggregate. This can be easily attained through the addition of a screening and sorting operation to the placer operation to sort and size the washed gravels.
There is a market in the Beauce region for gravels sorted to sizes 20 to 40 mm and up to 200 mm or more. The Corporation has started the required work in order to obtain a quarry permit in addition to its mining licenses.
Successful Gold Recovery
Samples were taken from two sample sites named Beauce 1 & Beauce 2. At both sites, gold grains were recovered from essentially barren washed gravel stockpiled by the former dredging operation in the 1960s. The size of the grains ranged from 100 um to 1.5 mm. Notable was a 1.5 mm diameter gold grain that weighted 0.2 g (image 1).
Visual observation of the gold grains revealed that 75% were rounded in shape; the remaining 25% were linear and delicate in shape (image 2 and 3). The delicate shapes suggest a close proximity to a bedrock source.
Microscopic analysis classified 90% of the grains as massive gold with some 10% an admixture of gold and silver or a platinum group element (PGE). Various amounts (0-10%) of non-metallic impurity can be associated with the gold grains, mostly iron oxides (Image 3). The grains have been sent to a laboratory for a SEM (Scanning Electron Microscopy) analysis for further observations.
Mr Robert Gagnon, P. Geo, is a Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the information in this news release.
Patrick Levasseur, president and COO of Uragold stated. "The information gained from this sampling is both useful and exciting! Recovering gold from barren washed gravels, where the dredge worked 50 years ago is a testament to the large scale of the old operation. It also gives us an insight into Uragold's future gold mining operation. The delicate grains are similar to those extracted from our sonic drilling which strengthens the hypotheses that we are near a bedrock source of gold. The fact that more then 75 % of the gold recovered during the program came from just one gold nugget strengthens our belief in the nugget effect on the property."
Patrick Levasseur also stated "looking at the potential value of our aggregates is another step being implemented in order to lower our overall mining costs as much as possible."
About Uragold Bay Resources Inc.
Uragold Bay Resources is a junior exploration company trading on the TSX Venture under the symbol UBR. Uragold holds gold properties in Southern Quebec's Appalachian belt. Uragold's business model focuses on developing small scale low-cost mining operations for their cash flow generating potential while simultaneously exploring core properties that hold the potential for the discovery of blue sky gold deposits like the MacDonald project. Uragold's Beauce Placer Gold project is in its final permitting stage for a 20 years mining lease placer gold mining operation. It will be Quebec's first placer mining operation in 50 years.
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
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Uragold Bay Resources Inc. - Image 1: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Uragold_0910_Image1.pdf
Uragold Bay Resources Inc. - Image 2: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Uragold_0910_Image2.pdf
Uragold Bay Resources Inc. - Image 3: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Uragold_0910_Image3.pdf