Virginia Gold finds more gold on Noella property

Vancouver — Virginia Gold Mines (VIA-T) has tabled encouraging results form its summer exploration program on its wholly-owned Noella property situated in the Caniapiscau area of Quebec.

This year’s program consisted of backhoe trenching, detailed mapping and sampling. Virginia states that its objective was to test the surface extension of gold mineralization discovered last year as well as to have a better understanding of the geological and structural controls.

A total of 43 trenches were dug within the Bear Iron Formation in order to test several gold showings and various induced polarization geophysical conductors. Results outlined a gold-bearing corridor that can be traced for 1.2 km which remains open in both directions. Virginia also reports that exploration also identified a new mineralized zone it has dubbed Bourdon.

On the west side of the Noella property, the BEAR iron formation represents a 4-to-6 metre thick unit which is composed mainly of magnetite and chert. Structurally, it is part of a km-scale open fold structure that plunges to the east. Virginia Gold systematically trenched and sampled along this structure and determined that gold mineralization is associated with pyrrhotite-arsenopyrite-hornblende-grunerite alteration zones. These alteration zones often form haloes around deformed, boudined, cm-to-metre-scale quartz veins.

In the Bear corridor, close the hinge of the fold, sampling over a 100 metre zone, returned gold promising gold values. Highlights are as follows:

• Trench 02-43 cut 1.2 metres averaging 18.36 grams gold per tonne as well as another 1.2-metre section that averaged 5.84 grams gold.
• Trench 02-42 cut 2.5 metres averaging 6.43 grams gold.
• Trench 02-35 cut 5.0 metres averaging 2.4 grams gold.
• Trench 02-34 cut 6.0 metes averaging 2.87 grams gold.
• Trench 02-33 cut 4.0 metres averaging 10.84 grams gold and included a 1.5-metre section that averaged 21.4 grams gold. Sampling in the same trench also cut a 4.0-metre section that averaged 6.56 grams gold.

Trench 02-22 returned 1.24 grams gold over 5.8 metres and 1.78 grams gold over 8.7 metres.

The Bourdon showing is situated on the northeast portion of the Noella property about one km from the Bear showing. Trenches were spaced 25 metres apart and exposed a 10-metre-thick laminated chert-silicate (hornblend-grunerite)-graphite iron formation that may represent a lateral facies variation of the Bear iron formation. Mineralization is mainly composed of sulphide veinlets and injections within locally brecciated iron formation.

Trench TR02-01 returned 10.7 metres averaging 5.33 grams gold per tonne. This included a 6.8-metre section that averaged 7.3 grams gold. Trench TR02-02 returned 16.9 metres averaging 1.02 grams gold. Mineralization remains open in all directions.

Trenching also further exposed mineralization at the Dead Mouse showing. The host rock is a 10-20-metre thick magnetite-chert unit that is similar to the Bear iron formation but that represents a different stratigraphic unit. Gold mineralization at Dead Mouse is weaker than in the Bear area and returned lower gold values. Highlights include; 11.8 metres averaging 0.5 gram gold and 15.7 metres averaging 0.57 gram gold.

The company reports that trenching over geophysical targets along the interpreted extensions of the Bear, Bourdon and Dead Mouse iron formations was often hampered by thick overburden and as a consequence several induced polarization conductors still remain unexplained on the property.

Cambior (CBJ-T) retains a 1% net smelter royalty on the Noella property, of which half can be bought back at any time $500,000.

Virginia intends to aggressively pursue these prospects and is currently preparing an exploration program for 2003. The junior has over $10 million in working capital and now debt.