Lateegra cuts gold at Del Norte, Clone

Vancouver — Lateegra Resources (LEG-V) is pleased with initial results from drilling at its Clone and Del Norte properties, 20 km southeast of Stewart, B.C.

Del Norte, which Lateegra shares with Teuton Resources (TVO-V), is in a 10-km-long belt that hosts multiple mineralized showings. These showings are in the contact area of sediments of the Salmon River formation and adjacent volcanic rocks. Three gold-bearing streams — Nelson, Del Norte and Willoughby Creek — cut across the property, and one of these supported placer mining in the 1930s.

Lateegra has an option to earn a half-stake in the property in return for making cash payments totalling $200,000, issuing 100,000 shares, and spending $2.5 million on exploration over five years.

Highlights from drilling are as follows:

— hole DN-01 — 7.8 ft. averaging 16.48 oz. silver and 0.315 oz. gold per ton starting at a down-hole depth of 12.2 ft;

— hole DN-02 — 10 ft. of 15.9 oz. silver and 0.278 oz. gold starting at 18.4 ft. down-hole;

— hole DN-03 — 6.1 ft. of 7.06 oz. silver and 0.406 oz. gold starting at 41.5 ft. down-hole;

— hole DN-04 — 9 ft. of 13.01 oz. silver and 0.093 oz. gold starting at 94.1 ft. down-hole;

Assays are pending for two more holes, which intersected the LG vein at the targeted depth. The steeply-dipping vein remains open to depth and along strike, and Lateegra believes it may be related to the Kosciuszko zone, which is 1,550 ft. to the southeast.

The LG and Kosciuszko structures share similar mineralogy and strike in the same direction. The latter represents a quartz-carbonate-sulphide cemented breccia hosted in argillite at the base of the Salmon River formation. A felsic dyke marks the eastern edge of the zone. Mineralization includes pyrite, sphalerite, galena, and tetrahedrite, along with traces of arsenopyrite and realgar.

The core recovery in the mineralized sections of holes DN03-1 to 4 ranged from 25% to 65% and may have contributed to a reduction in gold-silver values in these holes.

Meanwhile, at the Clone property, crews have drilled eight holes, only the first of which has been logged, split and assayed. Hole CL03-02 was sunk close to a hole drilled in 1996, which returned 32.9 ft. grading 1.28 oz. gold per ton. The recent hole intersected 27.8 ft. of 2.36 oz. gold starting at 14.8 ft. down-hole, including a 2.6-ft. interval of 6.13 oz. gold and a 4.5-ft. interval of 6.9 oz. gold.

In June, Lateegra Resources optioned a half-interest in the Clone property from Teuton Resources and Minvita Enterprises (MVE-V) in return for staged cash payments totalling $130,000, the issuance of 100,000 shares, and a commitment to spend $1.5 million on exploration over four years. Option cash and share payments will be divided equally between Teuton and Minvita.

Lateegra has agreed to spend $200,000 this year re-evaluating the Main zone, as well as exploring the remainder of the 4,200-acre property. The company believes the property has potential to host down-dip extensions of the gold-bearing shoots within the Main zone.

The Main zone of the Clone property hosts seven northwest-striking, sub-parallel, gold- and cobalt-bearing shear zones that have been traced up to 500 metres. The shear zones cut a package of volcanic and sedimentary rocks that have been traced for another 3 km beyond the Main zone, where three additional anomalous gold zones — Anderson, Clone North and Sutton — have been discovered.

Intrusive rocks and several other gold-bearing shear zones have been identified to the southeast.