First resource on Fronteer Development’s Long Canyon

Fronteer Development Group (FRG-T, FRG-x) has long said that its Long Canyon gold deposit in the heart of the Pequop mountain range in northeastern Nevada may define an entirely new gold trend, and the first resource estimate on the property seems to give credence to that view.

At a cut-off grade of 0.30 grams gold per tonne, Long Canyon, 120 km east of the mining services town of Elko, has an indicated resource of 4.81 million tonnes grading 2.35 grams gold per tonne for total contained gold of 363,000 ounces.

In the inferred category Long Canyon has 8.78 million tonnes at an average grade of 1.63 grams gold per tonne for total contained metal of 459,000 oz. gold.

“The grade-tonnage distribution shows that higher cut-off grades only modestly reduce the number of contained ounces, while significantly increasing the average grade of the resource,” the company said in a press release. “This positive correlation speaks to the high-grade nature of the gold deposit.”

If a cut-off grade of 1 gram gold per tonne were used for example, Long Canyon’s indicated resource would tally 2.49 million tonnes at an average grade of 4.01 grams gold per tonne for total metal of 322,000 oz. gold, and its inferred resource would come in at 3.63 million tonnes at an average grade of 3.16 grams gold per tonne for total metal of 369,000 oz. gold.

Oxide gold makes up 100% of the resource. Mineralization is open in all directions including to depth and has been intersected over a 1.7-km-long trend and across multiple zones that are collectively up to 400 metres in width.

Long Canyon shows near-surface mineralization similar to Carlin-style gold deposits. The gold mineralization is strongly oxidized and occurs in stratabound zones and fault and collapse breccias, hosted in a sequence of lower Paleozoic shelf carbonates.

Long Canyon is a joint venture with AuEX Ventures (XAU-V, AUXVF-O), in which Fronteer is the operator and the majority owner with a 51% stake in the project.

Fronteer plans more exploration drilling this year in the hopes of producing an updated resource estimate in the first quarter of 2010.

News of the resource estimate sent Fronteer shares up 15 or 5.24% to $3.01 per share in mid-day trading in Toronto.

The Vancouver-headquartered company has traded in a 52-week range of $1.55-$7.30 per share and has 113.7 million shares outstanding.

In addition to its properties in Nevada, Fronteer has a 40% interest in three gold and copper-gold projects in western Turkey, and a 92.1% interest in Aurora Energy Resources (AXU-T), a leading Canadian uranium company.