| June
12, 2000 |
TRADING
SYMBOL: ASE.FTR |
FIRESTEEL ACQUIRES THE
VIRIMOA PROPERTY IN DURANGO STATE, MEXICO
Firesteel
Resources Inc. (through its Mexican subsidiary) is pleased to
announce that it has acquired the Virimoa Property in the
northern part of Durango Province, Mexico. The exploration
concessions were purchased outright from the claim staker for
$15,000.
The
road-accessible property is located in an area with a long
history of small-scale gold and silver mining. The mineralized
tract is hosted by a prominent argillic and siliceous alteration
zone which is at least 400 meters long and 200 meters wide but
is open in all directions. The altered Middle Andesites are cut
by a well-developed system of sheeted veins and lenses up to 2
meters wide. Chip sampling was carried out along a creek bank
and road cuts during a previous investigation. This program
delineated a 160-meter long section, which returned a weighted
average grade of 1.1 g/t gold, 17 g/t silver and 1.12% zinc. A
30-meter section at the extreme southern end of the sample
traverse gave 2.79 g/t gold, 21.9 g/t silver and 3.43 % zinc.
This high-grade section occurs near the contact with the
overlying Upper Andesite and Rhyolite Unit. Chip sampling of a
road-cut 150 meters southwest of the sampled creek returned 60
meters of 46.6 g/t silver. These results suggest that the
various metals may exhibit a zonal distribution.
As part of a
thorough due diligence evaluation of the property, an
independent consultant contracted by Firesteel Resources Inc.
re-sampled the altered and mineralized zone. Nine chip samples
were collected from the same creek bank over a length of 350
meters. These separate samples varied in length form 8 meters to
50 meters and resulted in a cumulative sample length of 156
meters. These samples returned an arithmetic average grade of
1.04 g/t gold, 59.4 g/t silver and 1.1% zinc. A 16-meter chip
sample at the end of the traverse (same location as the
high-grade section reported above) returned 3.38 g/t gold, 26.2
g/t silver and 4.93% zinc.
The two sampling
programs have shown that the large altered and mineralized zone
on the Virimoa Property has the potential to become a very large
precious metal deposit. One of the best analogies in Mexico is
the Dolores Property in Chihuahua Province, which belongs to
Minefinders Corp. This company has published a resource of 89
million tonnes grading 0.75 g/t gold and 42.7 g/t silver. A
preliminary economic analysis indicated that the mining costs
would be $158 per gold-equivalent ounce.
Firesteel's
immediate plans are to carry out a program of soil sampling,
Induced Polarization, trenching, rock sampling and geological
mapping. A drilling campaign will be designed to evaluate the
targets identified by this exploration program.
A finders fee
of 50,000 Firesteel shares is payable to a third party - upon
acceptance by the CDNX.
ON BEHALF OF
THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF
FIRESTEEL RESOURCES INC.
David G. Dupré,
President |