Mawson Resources hits 6 metres grading 617 grams gold in Finland

VANCOUVER — Mawson Resources’ (MAW-T) share price has spiked after releasing a bonanza-grade hit from its Rompas property in northern Finland.

Stand-out hole 11 returned 6 metres grading 617 grams gold per tonne uncut from 7 metres downhole, including 1 metre averaging 3,540 grams gold.

The high-grade hole was released along with results from 13 other holes that were part of an initial drill program on the property, but Mawson was not so fortunate with the other holes. Drill holes 1 through 6, targeting the southern block of the project, and holes 8, 13, and 14 in the northern block did not return mineralization above one gram per tonne gold, while the second best result after hole 11 was hole 10 with a 1-metre interval grading 10.8 grams gold from 29 metres depth.

Other results included hole 12 that returned 1 metre grading 6.3 grams gold from 18 metres depth, hole 9 that cut 1 metre averaging 1.7 grams gold, and hole 7 that hit 1 metre averaging 1.6 grams gold.

Despite the many misses, the one spectacular hole was enough to lift Mawson’s share price up 36¢ or 33% to $1.44 with a relatively big spike in volume to 236,000 shares traded.

The company reports that drilling has confirmed a more than 100-metre-wide hydrothermal veined system consisting of variably but consistently calc-silicate veins with 20- to 40-metre thick zones hosting 30% to 50% veining.

The drill program followed an exploration program by Mawson that discovered high-grade gold and uranium mineralization at surface over an area of over 6 km in strike and 200 metres width. The weighted average of 154 channel samples from 2010 and 2011 came in at 1 metre grading 97.34 grams gold and 0.33% uranium. High-grade channel samples included 1.4 metres grading 2,429 grams gold and 5.1% uranium oxide, and 1.1 metre averaging 343.6 grams gold and 0.21% uranium oxide.

The company has drilled a total of 37 holes over 3,900 metres so far in its drill program, with results from the rest of the holes pending and two holes left to be drilled.

The Rompas project consists of 110 claims spanning 105.8 sq. km, though in December 2011 five appeals were lodged against the granting of the claims. The company states that a review of the appeals is underway by Finnish authorities to assess their legitimacy, which, if shown to be valid will lead to a court hearing on the matter. Mawson has also applied for roughly 610 sq. km more claims.

Roughly 70% of the 6-km-long trend the company has identified is overlaid by protected ecological areas that don’t allow for drilling or trenching. The company can apply for a modification of those restrictions by conducting an environmental program, which it has initiated and expects a decision sometime next year.

The company has roughly 52 million shares outstanding, with 38% held by Sentient, Pinetree Capital, and Areva, and about 10% held by insiders. Mawson secured the Rompas project from Areva in 2010. The company has roughly $7 million in cash.

Mawson recently spun out its Peruvian assets into Darwin Resources (DAR-V), and sold off non-core Scandinavian assets to Tournigan, now called European Uranium Resources (EUU-V) for $4.7 million in shares.