Placer steps up Indian Ranch drill program

Vancouver – Similarities between the lower plate window at Indian Ranch and the window on its Cortez JV property, are prompting Placer Dome (PDG-T) to drill another 9,800 feet on White Knight’s (WKR-V) 75%-owned Indian Ranch property in Nevada. The remaining 25% of the property is held by a U.S. subsidiary of Cranbrook-based Chapleau Resources (CHI-V).

White Knight’s property is situated in Eureka County, adjacent to the Cortez JV between Placer Dome and Rio Tinto (RTP-N). High-grade gold grades over hundreds of feet discovered on the Cortez JV property last month are driving a flurry of activity and speculation in the area now known as the Cortez Trend.

Although Placer had drilled 2500 feet on the property in two holes last year, it came up empty-handed. White Knight says that Placer had drilled two targets it had considered low priority in order to meet work commitments.

Since then, Placer has done geochemical, geological and geophysical surveying that may indicate the southern projection of the Coal Canyon Window is buried on the Indian Ranch property. Placer’s geologists are quoted as saying: “The principal stratigraphic, structural and geologic features recognized in and around this window closely resemble those within the Cortez JV. These include, the Roberts Mountain thrust, lower plate calcareous lithologies, intrusive bodies with contact metamorphic aurioles, widespread alteration and a gold-arsenic-antimony-mercury geochemical signature.”

Placer is exploring Indian Ranch through a binding letter agreement for development whereby it can earn a 60% interest in the property by spending US$2 million over four years.