Ridgway, Wasylyshyn join Golden Temple

Junior Golden Temple Mining (GTM-V) has augmented its management team by appointing Simon Ridgway as a director and Robert Wasylyshyn as vice-president of exploration.

The two are noted for having helped discover the San Martin hot-springs gold deposit in central Honduras for Mar-West Resources. Last fall, Mar-West was purchased for $40 million by Glamis Gold (GLG-T).

Golden Temple is exploring for minerals in Mexico. In 1998, the company optioned two of its properties, El Gordo-Kabah and Apolo-Venus, to Noranda (nor-t). The properties are prospective for volcanogenic massive sulphide mineralization and occur in the central state of Guanajuato, near the city of Leon.

The Mexican subsidiary of Noranda can earn up to a 70% interest in El Gordo by spending $12 million on exploration and making cash payments totalling $500,000 over seven years. To date, Noranda has paid Golden Temple $50,000. The property centres on a 50-metre-thick showing of semi-massive-to-massive sulphides. The mineralization is both banded and stratiform. Pyrite is the dominant sulphide, though sphalerite, galena and barite have been noted.

The host rocks are carbonaceous argillites and phyllites of the Esperenza Formation. A second sulphide showing has been found 1.3 km along strike.

Noranda can also earn an initial half-interest in the Apolo-Venus property, 30 km northwest of El Gordo, by spending $4 million on exploration over four years and paying $100,000. By making additional cash payments of $300,000 and spending up to a further $12 million on exploration, Noranda can boost its interest to 70%.

The Apolo property centres on the Los Gavilanes prospect, where an old adit appears to cut through hangingwall alteration ending in stratiform massive sulphide mineralization. Channel sampling at 5-metre intervals averaged 1.14% copper, as well as 1.78 grams gold and 20 grams silver per tonne, over a 48-metre length (representing a true thickness of 31 metres). The host rocks consist of phyllites of the Esperenza Formation.

Initial regional geological mapping and stream-sediment sampling by Noranda have revealed two other massive sulphide prospects, dubbed Tres Estrellas and La Pena Rica.

It is believed that prior to Noranda’s involvement, neither Apolo nor El Gordo had been subjected to drilling or any other modern exploration.

Golden Temple also holds the Carmen-El Varal claims, 15 km northwest of the city of Aguascalientes. The property covers 1,051 ha of ground within a window of the Esperenza Formation. A reconnaissance program resulted in 18 rock samples that revealed widespread anomalous copper, lead, zinc, silver and iron mineralization in a stratiform gossanous zone. A 4-to-6-metre-thick interval of massive sulphides, consisting mainly of chalcopyrite, is reported to occur in an abandoned shaft on the Carmen claim.

Golden Temple is raising $96,000 in a private placement of 600,000 units priced at 16 cents each. Each unit consists of one share and one warrant entitling the purchase of an additional share at 16 cents in the first year, or 18 cents in the second. The company has 6 million shares outstanding.