Strike Minerals fka STK

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Strike Minerals dewaters Edwards mine



2011-05-26 07:57 ET - News Release



Mr. Michael Newbury reports


STRIKE MINERALS ANNOUNCES DEWATERING OF THE EDWARDS MINE


Strike Minerals Inc. will proceed with dewatering the Edwards mine decline on its property in the Wawa area of Ontario. The dewatering will allow the company to conduct underground exploration and drilling on the known gold-mineralized zones to establish a mineral resource prior to production.



The mine was in production until 2001 and ceased operation due to the decline in the gold price to below $300 per ounce. While in production the mine produced a total of 144,000 ounces of gold from 370,000 tons, for an average grade of 0.39 ounce per ton.


Development underground was on a number of different levels between 30 metres and the final decline depth of 291 metres. Subsequently, the ramp and underground workings were allowed to fill with water.


The company also had appropriate surface facilities such as settling ponds and waste dumps for full operation. A 40-man camp is also on the site, and the company is undertaking refurbishment to provide adequate housing facilities for the dewatering program. The company has been working with the Ministry of Mines to reactivate all the permits necessary to proceed with the dewatering and underground refurbishment.



Mike Newbury, president and chief executive officer of Strike, comments: "Strike has a unique opportunity to conduct underground exploration on the identified gold-mineralized zones that can provide significantly more information than surface drilling at similar cost. The dewatering will provide direct underground access at a significantly lower investment than would be required to excavate a new decline."


Strike has executed a contract with P.J. Whelan Mining Contractors to conduct the actual dewatering. Whalen has considerable experience in this type of work on a number of other mining operations such as the McGarry project for Armistice Resources Corp. and Mcfinley mine dewatering. The dewatering will include refurbishment of the ramp.


Dewatering is expected to take approximately four to six months. The dewatering program will allow the company to conduct underground exploration on new mineralized zones that have been delineated by in excess of 35,000 feet of drilling subsequent to the cessation of operations.



The mineralization at Edwards is a typical greenstone-hosted quartz-carbonate vein deposit that occurs as quartz and quartz-carbonate veins, with valuable amounts of gold and silver, in faults and shear zones located within deformed zones of ancient to recent greenstone belts. The Abitibi greenstone belt contains the majority of the productive districts, including the very large Timmins, Kirkland Lake, Larder Lake, Rouyn-Noranda and Val d'Or districts. The mineralized zones of most interest on the property are auriferous quartz veins located in tension shears/fractures oblique to the Edwards/Cline shear zone.


Historically, auriferous quartz veins at Edwards are grey-white to blue-grey in colour, with individual veins ranging from several inches in width to 10 feet or more, generally averaging one to two feet. They have some times occurred in multiple sets with significant overall width, especially when found in quartz-porphyry units, which tend to provide more conduits due to their brittle fracturing under stress. The quartz veins generally exhibit 1 to 3 per cent pyrite/pyrrhotite, occasionally with minor amounts of chalcopyrite, sphalerite and galena. Fine, free and frequently visible gold has been present in the majority of drill core intersections from all drill programs on the property since 1988. The visible gold is seen as discrete specks and grains, often as clouds or clusters, and some times amounts to 1 per cent or more of the quartz vein inclusions.



Strike is also in the process of digitizing all the available historical drilling and underground information to create an accurate 3-D picture of the mineralized zones to assist in the formulation of the next stage of exploration on the property. It is expected that this work will include underground drifting to cut the identified mineral zones and underground drilling to delineate resources.