Quaterra tables Union Bay results

Vancouver — A four-hole drill program by Quaterra Resources (QTA-V) has returned narrow zones of platinum-palladium mineralization from the Union Bay project in Alaska.

The first two holes of the 360-metre program tested the North zone, where 162 rock-chip samples were collected yielding up to 17.3 grams combined platinum-palladium. Twenty-three of the samples returned values greater than 0.1 gram platinum-palladium with eight yielding better than 1 gram. Hole 1 was drilled in the westerly direction and returned 10.6 grams platinum and 0.56 gram palladium over 0.5 metre from 19.1 metre down-hole. Hole 2 was drilled in a northeasterly direction and cut 0.42 gram platinum and 0.02 gram palladium over 0.6 metre from 50.1 metre down-hole.

The last two holes were collared some 3.2 km to the west at the Mt. Burnett zone. Hole 3 hit three mineralized sections grading up to 0.16 gram platinum and 0.12 gram palladium over 3.7 metres from 0.6 metre down-hole. The final hole hit two zones including a 0.3-metre section running 1 gram platinum and 0.16 gram palladium from 28.4 metres down-hole.

“The discontinuous nature of stratiform PGE (platinum group elements) mineralization in occurrences such as the J-M reef in the Stillwater Complex is well documented,” says Quaterra’s president Thomas Patton. “The large size of our target combined with widespread high-grade surface samples suggests that continued exploration should be successful in identifying zones with mineable widths and grades”.

Located near Ketchikan, the 5-by-10-km Union Bay complex shows the characteristic zonal features of a Ural-Alaska complex, with a 1-km wide dunite core on the southeastern side moving through wehrlite and magnetite-bearing olivine clinopyroxenites to hornblendite and gabbro on the margins. The complex appears as a lopolith folded along a later staged west-northwest trending axis.

Quaterra is earning a 50% interest in Union Bay by spending US$1 million on exploration and making cash payments of US$100,000 over four years. Quaterra also agreed to issue 200,000 shares of its common stock to International Freegold Mineral Development (ITF-V) — 100,000 shares upon approval of the transaction by the Canadian Venture Exchange and 100,000 shares on May 1, 2002.