Mar-West reports Honduran gold find

Hot on the heels of the company’s discovery of a gold deposit at the Cerro Blanco property in Guatemala, Mar-West Resources (MSR-V) has discovered a gold zone on the San Martin property in central Honduras.

The Honduran find, dubbed the Palo Alto zone, is 2 km west of the Sinter zone. Gold mineralization in both structures occurs in a low-angle shear zone within altered and strongly oxidized schists.

Palo Alto is defined by a geophysical resistivity anomaly that can be traced for 1.6 km; the surface expression of the anomaly continues for an additional 700 metres. A coincident gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly is slightly offset to the north.

The San Martin property is owned 80% by Mar-West and 20% by Curion Ventures (CUV-V).

Mar-West drilled six reverse-circulation holes on a 100-by-100-metre grid to test 200 metres of strike length along the zone. All holes were drilled at an angle of minus 60. Highlights include:

* hole 9, which intersected 25.9 metres grading 1.85 grams gold per tonne, starting from a depth of 4.6 metres downhole;

* hole 10, which cut 21.3 metres of 0.6 gram starting at a depth of 4.6 metres;

* hole 11, which returned 24.4 metres grading 0.73 gram starting at 3 metres downhole;

* hole 12, which intersected 12.2 metres of 0.81 gram starting from a depth of 4.6 metres; and

* hole 14, which intersected 16.8 metres of 0.71 gram, starting at 6.1 metres downhole.

Mar-West and Curion, which are currently choosing drill targets, intend to incorporate the resource expansion into the ongoing feasibility study.

In other news, Mar-West has released more drill results from its wholly owned Cerro Blanco property in Guatemala. The mineralized zone, defined by geochemical and geological surveys, has a strike length of about 2.8 km. The zones — 620 Hill and North — make up the target area.

Drill holes 3 and 5 represent 300 and 500 metre stepouts, respectively, from discovery holes 1 and 2. Both holes were drilled within the 620 Hill zone at an angle of minus 50.

Highlights of the drilling include hole 3, which intersected 91.5 metres of 0.67 gram gold, starting at a depth of 41.1 metres downhole, and hole 5, which cut 47.2 metres of 1.43 grams, starting at a depth of 36.6 metres downhole. Included was a 12.2-metre intercept that ran 2.28 grams gold, starting at a depth of 71.6 metres downhole.

Mar-West says the results point to a large, mineralized “corridor” that underlies a barren cap of sinter. The width of the zone is still unknown, though the structure remains open to the east, west and at depth. The north-southerly trending “corridor” could represent the conduit for the formation of the sinter. To date, only 500 metres of strike length have been tested. Geologists believe there is a strong vertical control on the gold mineralization, as suggested by the near-surface intersections of holes 1, 3 and 5, especially in comparison with the deeper, stronger mineralization seen in hole 2. The company intends to test the zone at depth.

Hole 4 was drilled in the North zone, 1,600 metres north of holes 1 and 2.

The hole was designed to test a mineralized trench that returned 1.37 grams gold across a width of 45 metres.

Hole 4 returned 15.2 metres of 0.79 gram gold, starting at a depth of 47.7 metres downhole, and 13.6 metres grading 2.17 grams, starting at 134.1 metres downhole.

Gold mineralization in the North zone is controlled by a series of diatreme dykes that cut across the northern sinter body.

Mar-West re-assayed hole 2 using metallic screen techniques, an action prompted by the presence of visible gold in some of the drill cuttings. The initial gold assay returned 111.3 metres of 1.48 grams gold. The metallic gold assay returned the same value. Included in hole 2 was a 50.3-metre interval that ran 2.57 grams gold, according to the original assay. The metallic gold assay ran 2.53 grams gold.

The consistency between the assay results indicates that “nugget effect” is negligible, and suggests that the gold is uniformly disseminated.

Mar-West is drilling hole 8, west of hole 2. The company has 16.6 million shares issued, 17.6 million fully diluted and working capital of $6 million.