Expatriate tests gold camp

Equal partners Expatriate Resources (EXR-V) and Nordac Resources (NRQ-V) are encouraged by the results of a grassroots gold exploration program on the Armenius and Eureka properties in the Yukon.

Combined, the properties comprise 8,000 ha in the southern part of the Klondike goldfields, and creeks draining the property are said to have produced in excess of 140,000 oz. gold.

The companies believe there are two possible bedrock sources of placer mineralization.

The first is situated on a well-vegetated ridge at the headwaters of Eureka creek. Reconnaissance soil and stream-sediment sampling outlined a geochemical target with a diameter of about 2 km. The area is unglaciated and contains few outcrops. The best rock exposures were found in bulldozer trenches dug by the previous owner. Sampling at the base of one of these trenches returned 0.33 gram gold per tonne over 6.5 metres. Prospecting along the banks of the trenches revealed abundant boulders of leached breccia. Samples of the breccia assayed 0.85-15 grams gold.

The second possible source for the placer gold is a regional-scale thrust fault 7 km to the north. Highly fractured bedrock pulled from here contains abundant free gold, and, though most samples returned low values, one assayed 75.38 grams gold.

Meanwhile, Expatriate and Newmont Mining (NEM-N) have entered into a joint-venture agreement to explore the Aurex-Sinister property in central Yukon.

Newmont can earn an initial 51% interest by spending $3.5 million on exploration over five years. Expatriate, in turn, is earning a 100% interest in the property from YKR International (YKI-V).

Once vested, Newmont can increase its stake to 60% by spending an additional $2.5 million over three years, and to 80% by bringing the property to production.

Sampling has returned gold assays of up to 8.8 grams from arsenopyrite-pyrrhotite-bearing skarns. Samples from stibnite-arsenopyrite vein float have returned up to 9.3 grams gold.

Shallow air-track drilling by YKR in 1992 outlined three zones containing gold mineralization and highly anomalous arsenic, antimony and tungsten. The best intersection cut 6.1 metres averaging 7.9 grams gold. The drilling performed by YKR failed to test the entire stratigraphic section, Expatriate says, and recent soil sampling has extended the geochemical anomaly beyond the areas of known gold mineralization.

In other news, Expatriate has granted Echo Bay Mines (ECO-T) an option to earn a 65% stake in its Cook JV properties, near Timmins, Ont. The package consists of the Russell Creek property in Bowman Twp. and the Watabeag property in Currie Twp.

Echo Bay stands to earn a half-interest by spending $200,000 on exploration before November 2002, and it can increase this to 65% by spending an additional $200,000 prior to November 2004.

Situated south of the prolific Destor-Porcupine fault, the properties are underlain by a mixed sequence of mafic-to-felsic volcanic rocks intermixed with sedimentary sequences.

Overburden drilling at the Russell creek property returned anomalous gold values of 5,800-416,000 parts per billion gold in heavy-mineral concentrates of basal till material.

Basal till samples on the Watabeag property also yielded anomalous gold values. One diamond core hole cut brecciated and altered andesite that assayed 8.9 grams gold over 0.9 metre.

At last report, Expatriate had 17.7 million shares on a fully diluted basis and $1.8 million in working capital.