Altius seeks exploration funds

Junior Altius Minerals (ALS-V) is attempting to raise more than $1 million for its various exploration projects in Newfoundland.

The financing will see the St. John’s-based explorer offer 1 million units at $1.05 apiece. A unit consists of a share and half a warrant, with a full warrant entitling the holder to buy a share at $1.25 within a year of the deal’s closing or at $1.50 in the following year.

Haywood Securities has agreed to underwrite the private placement in return for a 7% commission in cash or shares. In addition, the firm will be granted 50,000 warrants that can be converted into shares, at $1.05 each, within a year of the deal’s closing.

The private placement is subject to exchange approval.

In a separate transaction, Altius gained $722,250 from the exercise of 1.6 million warrants issued in March 2000. The warrants were part of a private placement.

Meanwhile, Altius has added 195 sq. km to its exploration portfolio by adding 456 claims to its Rocky Brook property and staking 780 claims in the Baie d’Espoir region. The latter group of claims represents the company’s first foray in south-central Newfoundland.

The southern area of the 195-sq.-km Baie d’Espoir property is underlain by metamorphosed siltstone, pelite, slate and graphitic schists, all of which is intruded by felsic dykes and a large granite body.

A few claims overlie a quartz-veined, shallowly dipping fault zone up to 3 metres thick. Representative boulders are scattered along 3 km of trend, and grab samples of pyrite-bearing quartz veins have yielded up to 6.5 grams gold per tonne, plus anomalous bismuth, silver and molybdenum.

The northern portion displays vein-style and stratiform tungsten mineralization in calc-silicate metasediments that are intruded by granitic and granodioritic bodies of Late Silurian to Early Carboniferous age.

An old lake sediment survey outlined a prominent arsenic-tungsten-gold anomaly over an area measuring 100 sq. km.

Situated in western Newfoundland, at the northern tip of the Deer Lake basin, Rocky Brook was acquired in early 2001. The recent addition increases its size to 151 sq. km.

Unsourced boulders on the property assayed up to 11.5% uranium oxide, plus 29.45 grams silver and 17.8 grams gold per tonne. Up to 2.2% copper over 5.25 metres of outcropping has been reported as well, and radioactive outcroppings on the newly acquired claims display uranium mineralization and copper staining.

At its Moosehead property, in the province’s central region, Altius plans to carry out 4,000 metres of drilling. The program will be funded by a unit of Agnico-Eagle Mines (AGE-T), which can earn a 60% interest in exchange for staged payments and exploration expenditures.

The pair recently sank six holes to test electromagnetic conductors, all of which were confirmed as representative of fault zones displaying widespread clay alteration, quartz flooding and anomalous gold mineralization. Only one hole, MH-3, returned any results of significance, namely 2.4 grams over 3.86 metres starting at 141 metres down-hole.

Drilling last fall returned a 1.5-metre intercept averaging just over 170 grams gold.