Black Pearl taps high-grade gold at Wekusko

Vancouver – Northern Manitoba explorer Black Pearl Minerals (BLK-V) has cut significant high-grade gold in drilling of its 9,100-hectare Wekusko Lake project located 21 km east of Snow Lake.

Initial core drilling on the Gold Dust zone returned multiple near-surface gold-rich intersections including:

• Hole BP-05-10 – The NQ core hole cut 6 metres (from 28.4 metres depth) grading 34.8 grams gold per tonne;
• Hole BP-05-13 – A 4.5-metre section (from 6-metres depth) returned 17.4 grams gold, with a 2.8-metre interval further down-hole (from 30.5 metres) assaying 156.3 grams gold;
• Hole BP-05-14 – An intercept of 3.4 metres (from 8 metres) averaged 20 grams gold, followed by a deeper intersection of 1.6 metres (at 40-metres depth) grading 6.3 grams gold.

True widths are estimated to be about 70% of reported widths. Seventeen of the initial 23 holes successfully intersected significant gold values.

Discovered in 1988, the Gold Dust zone is comprised of several gold mineralized quartz veins. The steeply dipping vein-sets occur within inter-layered volcanic flows and tuffs which have been intruded by mafic-to-felsic intrusives. Past drilling has identified several high-grade shoots in the vein system extending over 2 km.Further drilling by Black Pearl will test the depth potential of the Gold Dust zone and explore between the south and north shoots.

The company is also drilling the McCafferty zone, about 4 km northeast of Gold Dust, where a 500-metre long gold-bearing quartz vein has been traced on surface.

Black Pearl is earning a 100% interest in Wekusko Lake from Strider Resources, a private Manitoba company, for total option payments of $500,000, incurring $2 million in exploration expenditures and issuing one million shares. There is a 3% NSR on property, of which 1.5% can be purchased for $1.5 million.

The company is also earning a 100% interest in the Ferro Gold mine, located about one-third of a kilometre north of the Gold Dust zone. The Ferro mine has seen extensive drilling and has about 1,500 metres of underground workings constructed in the 1940s. There is an estimated resource of 79,000 tonnes in the deposit grading 14.6 grams gold. The calculation pre-dates National Instrument 43-101.

Investors leapt on Black Pearl following the results, driving its stock price up over 75% to the 37 per share level on volume of over 1.8-million shares. With 14.7 million shares outstanding, the company’s market capitalization is $5.5 million.