Ivanhoe strikes South Korean gold

Four years of grassroots exploration in South Korea is paying off for Robert Friedland’s Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-T).

Near Haenam Twp., in the province of Cholla, drilling outlined an epithermal vein system containing bonzana grades of gold and silver. Geologists were alerted to the system by four quartz-riddled hills lying along a regional structure and adjacent to a producing clay deposit.

Gold and silver occur in veins, breccias and stockworks in zones of quartz flooding. Seventeen holes drilled into three of the hills (the fourth remains untested) cut significant mineralization to depths of 200 metres below surface, including:

3 metres (starting at a down-hole depth of 108 metres) grading 120 grams gold and 680 grams silver per tonne in hole M1;

1 metre (at 67 metres down-hole) grading 31 grams gold and 647 grams silver in hole M2;

3.6 metres (at 118 metres) grading 85.8 grams gold and 74 grams silver in hole E7; and

8 metres (at 140 metres) grading 6.1 grams gold and 63 grams silver in hole C3.

A 74-metre stepout from hole 1 yielded 31.7 grams gold over 1 metre.

The fourth hill rests about 1 km north of the others and displays a similar style of mineralization. Chip sampling has consistently yielded anomalous gold and silver, and a float assayed 23 grams gold and 119 grams silver.

About 30 km away, a second discovery, of four veins, yielded generally lower grades. The best results from the 3,500 metres drilled were 3.1 grams gold and 160 grams silver over 4.9 metres, and 5.2 grams gold and 155 grams silver over 3.4 metres. Mineralization at both systems remains open along strike and at depth. Drilling and trenching continues.

Ivanhoe operates in South Korea through its 90%-owned subsidiary Sun Shin Gold Mining. The company also operates in Myanmar.