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Kootenay Gold commences diamond drilling programme at Espiritu gold-copper project

Last updated: 20:03 03 Dec 2009 GMT, First published: 21:03 03 Dec 2009 GMT

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Kootenay Gold (TSX-V: KTN) said phase one diamond drill programme was underway at its Espiritu gold-copper project in Sonora, Mexico, a project that Kootenay said was a potential company maker.

The programme, which is expected to take 3 to 4 weeks, will consist of a minimum 1,000 meters of HQ core and comprise of 4 to 6 holes in 4 drill sites 100 to 500 meters apart.

Kootenay said that the economic value of the project was enhanced by the evidence of silver-gold enriched veins occurring within and adjacent to the gold-copper porphyry style mineralisation, indicating the existence of a strong precious metal component.

The northeast zone of the project is defined by a concentric pattern of zonation diagnostic of copper gold porphyry deposits. The different zones are strong propylite, argillic, sericitic and potassic alteration hosted in a biotite, feldspar quartz porphyry.

In the biotite zone, 19 samples returned average grades of 0.24% copper and 0.239 g/t gold. The polymetallic veins show anomalous values in gold with a high of 3.60 g/t and silver with a high of 462 g/t.

The main mineralisation in the southwest is defined by several zones names the west, east and central polymetallic zones. Anomalous mineralisation has been recognised in two other separate zones, the PS-1 and PS-2 zones.

Fifty-eight grab samples were collected within the west, central and eastern parts of the southwest polymetallic zone.  The polymetallic veins averaged 226 g/t (grammes per tonne) silver, 1.58% lead and 1.57% zinc associated with 0.18 g/t gold and 0.15% copper.  From the 35 samples collected from the polymetallic system, 18 were greater than 0.100 gpt gold and 29 were greater than 30 g/t silver.

The PS-1 area gave values of 0.84, 0.50 and 0.46 g/t gold and 277 and 217 g/t silver associated with anomalous lead with grades of up to 6% and zinc with grades up to 1.5%.  The PS-2 zone returned silver values of 686, 644 and 487 g/t and anomalous copper, lead and zinc from thirteen samples has been noted.

Kootenay Gold Audio Interview with Jim McDonald

Jim McDonald of Kootenay Gold discusses the company's business strategy to explore and exploit new mineral discoveries in Mexico.

on 24/2/09