Tumi Resources

[Ed Monton]

Tumi adds Oster Silvberg project to Swedish basket


2006-02-07 17:03 ET - News Release

Mr. David Henstridge reports

TUMI RESOURCES STAKES THE OSTER SILVBERG SILVER PROSPECT, BERGSLAGEN DISTRICT, SWEDEN

Tumi Resources Ltd. has acquired, through staking, the Oster Silvberg property (312 hectares) within the Bergslagen district of south-central Sweden.

The Bergslagen district lies immediately to the northwest of Stockholm and covers an area of approximately 200 kilometres (km) east-west by 150 km north-south. The district is underlain by volcanics and sediments which are more than two billion years old. The region has undergone several phases of folding and has been intruded by at least two generations of granitoids. Bergslagen is a highly mineralized district and one of the most important ore districts in Sweden, containing deposits of iron, manganese, base metal and silver.

The Oster Silvberg mine, located 27 km south of the city of Falun, was once the chief producer of silver in Sweden in the 14th and 15th centuries, but there has been no production since the mid-1920s. The host rock is generally a metamorphosed, fine-grained, bedded potassic rhyolite tuff. Near the ore contacts, the rock is often classified as an ore quartzite which is actually the tuff that has been altered to mostly quartz, garnet, mica, minor andalusite and other metamorphic minerals. The mineral bodies at Oster Silvberg are found in cross-fractures, spatially related to the metamorphosed tuff formations, which appear to have been formed by the regional folding that deformed the host rocks.

The principal ore was an argentiferous galena that formed a columnar body to the 220-metre level of the mine. Flanking the galena to the north and southeast occur some narrower pyrite-sphalerite orebodies containing very little galena and traces of chalcopyrite, quartz and fluorite. Complete mine production and grade records are not available. Early records indicate that silver production exceeded 32,000 ounces per year. One tabulation shows a total of only 2,900 ounces of silver mined in 13 different years between 1636 and 1920. The mine suffered several shutdowns in these centuries due to rock caves, owing in part to the reduced production during these times. Various assays from the 17th and 18th centuries show that the Oster Silvberg galena carried from 1,053 grams per tonne (g/t) to 4,335 g/t silver. In addition, the produced silver contained about 10 per cent gold (from 100 g/t to 430 g/t).

The company intends to obtain the historical records of this historic mine area for detailed study and believes the area has excellent potential for discovering new mineral occurrences either along strike or downdip from the known mineralization or new mineralized zones.

Says David Henstridge: "As a silver explorer, our focus has been on Mexico, one of the world's most important silver producers, where we are continuing advanced exploration at the La Trini project. Further research for new silver projects took us to the Bergslagen district in Sweden and specifically the historic Sala silver mine. Sala once produced some of the richest silver ores in the world with grades as high as 7,000 g/t. Our research indicated the ground was open at the old Sala mine, so the company has staked the mine and surrounding ground. We believe that modern exploration methods may help discover new silver occurrences in and around the old mines. Identifying Sala also led to the discovery of other silver prospects in the Bergslagen district and the company now has under lease the Sala, Svardsjo, Hallefors, Kalvbacken, Tomtebo, Lovasens and Skalbo silver exploration properties, and now the Oster Silvberg property as well. Most of these properties have had some historical silver production. Tumi has made a serious commitment to silver exploration in Sweden and the company has applied for further exploration licences in Sweden."

The qualified person for the Oster Silvberg project, Mr. Henstridge, a fellow of the Australian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy, and a member of the Australian Institute of Geoscientists, has verified the contents of this news release.