TORONTO, Aug. 08, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Nevada Zinc Corporation (“Nevada Zinc” or the “Company”) (TSX-V: NZN ) is pleased to report significant developments that impact its Yukon based VIP Project located west of Kaminak Gold Corporation’s previously owned Coffee Gold Project (Kaminak Gold was purchased by Goldcorp Inc. on July 19, 2016 in a share exchange valued at approximately $521 million). The Company acquired its large unexplored VIP Project land package before the Kaminak Gold announcement of its Coffee Gold discoveries in 2010 and has recently added significantly to its VIP Project land package by acquiring the 16 square kilometre Wolf claim group that is located within the existing boundaries of the VIP Project.
The recently acquired Wolf claims and the original VIP Project cover the interpreted sources of a number of high gold and multi-element geochemical targets similar to those around the Coffee Gold Project. Nevada Zinc has outlined a number of geochemical and structural targets that warrant further follow-up and the Company is carrying out several initiatives to define targets to a level that the targets would warrant drill testing. No drilling or trenching has ever been undertaken on the Company’s extensive VIP Project land holdings.
Adjacent to the west of Goldcorp’s Coffee Gold Project, Independence Gold Corp. (TSX-V: IGO ) recently announced the definition of a new gold trend target that it will soon drill test on ground where Nevada Zinc holds a 1% net smelter royalty interest. The Company’s VIP Project is located adjacent to the west of Goldcorp’s and Independence Gold’s properties and covers a significantly underexplored 17 kilometre extension of the regionally extensive Coffee Fault structural trend that is important to both Goldcorp’s Coffee Project and Western Copper and Gold Corporation’s, copper-gold Casino Project. The Coffee Gold Project is now known to host more than 5 million ounces of gold (total NI-43-101 inferred resources or higher category –see website reference below) while the Casino Project, further to the east on the trend, hosts 8.9 million ounces of gold and 4.5 billion pounds of copper (reserves alone, not including resources).
Given the recent strong interest by investors in the gold market and in the Coffee Gold area specifically, Nevada Zinc is in the process of allocating additional resources to its VIP Project, which has been significantly enhanced by the Company’s recent acquisition of the Wolf group of claims. The Wolf claims cover a number of targets as well as the extension of other targets near the boundaries of the Wolf and the VIP claims. The northeast corner of the Wolf claims and the adjacent VIP claims cover the upper portion of a creek that shows clear evidence of significant historic placer gold mining that has not previously been reported in any literature. This placer activity near the headwaters of a local creek is indicative of the presence of nearby gold in bedrock.
President and CEO, Bruce Durham commented, “while our focus project continues to be our highly prospective Lone Mountain Zinc Project in Nevada, we are extremely encouraged to see the recent entrance by Goldcorp into the Coffee Creek area of Yukon through its purchase of Kaminak Gold and its very recent acquisition of a 19.9% interest in Independence Gold. We own a 100% interest in more than 800 claims in the area making us the only significant junior company in the area not influenced by Goldcorp. We have expanded our property position significantly with our recent acquisition of the Wolf block of claims and we look forward to advancing a number of high priority targets that we have outlined on the VIP Project over the past 6 years. The discoveries just announced and currently being drilled by Independence Gold on its YCS property, where we hold a 1% NSR royalty, extend the Coffee Creek gold district much further west toward our VIP Project. Not only do we hold a royalty on the YCS property, but any further extension of these gold discoveries would trend onto our VIP Project that extends along the main regional trend for more than 17 kilometres. There is room for an entire gold camp on our VIP Project and VIP is only one of several large footprint, high quality, gold projects we continue to advance in Yukon”.
New property maps for the Company’s key gold projects are available at: www.nevadazinc.com .
Timeline of Recent Developments
May 12, 2016: Goldcorp announced its intention to acquire, via a share exchange, all of the outstanding shares of Kaminak Gold Corporation for total consideration of approximately $521 million.
June 20, 2016: Independence Gold announced a private placement of $1.96 million. Goldcorp announced they would acquire 19.9% of Independence Gold as well as secure certain participation rights in Independence Gold’s Boulevard Property, adjacent to both the Coffee Project and Nevada Zinc’s VIP Project, as part of the private placement.
June 24, 2016: Independence Gold closed the $1.96 million private placement. Goldcorp acquired 19.9% interest in Independence Gold and certain participation rights in its Boulevard Property.
July 7, 2016: Independence Gold announced plans to complete additional drilling on the Denali Zone where Nevada Zinc holds a 1% net smelter royalty pursuant to a property deal between the parties.
July 19, 2016: Goldcorp announced completion of the takeover of Kaminak Gold at an exchange ratio of 0.10896 of a Goldcorp share per Kaminak Gold share resulting in the Kaminak Gold shareholders holding a 2.5% ownership interest in Goldcorp. On the closing date the takeover was valued at approximately $521 million.
August 2, 2016: Independence Gold announced it had outlined a new 1200 metre long multi-element soil geochemical target 750 metres north of the Denali zone called Kahiltna that it will drill test in its current exploration program.
VIP Project
The VIP Project was acquired by the Company (formerly Goldspike Exploration) before the first announcement of the Coffee Creek drill results by Kaminak Gold in 2010. The VIP Project was acquired as a very large, completely untested gold exploration target covering the upstream location of a number of significant gold and pathfinder element anomalies located along the major regional trend located immediately west of Goldcorp’s Coffee Project. A transaction between Goldspike Exploration Inc. (now Nevada Zinc) and Silverquest (now Independence Gold) on some of the claims near the western boundary of the Coffee Project resulted in the Company retaining a 1% net smelter returns (“NSR”) royalty on Independence Gold’s YCS Property.
The largest field program completed to-date on the VIP Project commenced about the time of the Company completing its Initial Public Offering in August of 2011. Since that time Kaminak Gold and Independence Gold among others have completed multi-million dollar exploration programs to advance their properties. Kaminak Gold reported the following commentary on its resources outlined since that time on its website:
“ Since making the initial discovery in 2010, Kaminak has drilled 16 separate and distinct gold discoveries and established a Probable reserve of 46.4Mt at 1.45g/t Au, containing 2,157,000oz Au. In addition the NI 43-101 Indicated resource (inclusive of reserves) comprise 63.7Mt at 1.45g/t Au for 2,968,000oz Au, including 2,170,000 ounces gold classified as Oxide, and an Inferred resource total of 52.4Mt at 1.31g/t Au for 2,212,000oz Au, including 857,000 ounces gold classified as Oxide.(See news release September 23rd, 2015). Resource cut-off grade limits are 0.3 g/t Au for Oxide and Upper Transitional, 0.4 g/t Au for Middle Transitional and 1.0 g/t Au for Lower Transitional and Sulphide resources” .
The VIP Project, through various government and industry mapping initiatives, has been shown to be underlain by various identical and similar geological units as are found on both the Coffee Project and Boulevard Project and significant structures, anomalous soil and stream geochemical targets have been shown to exist at locations on the VIP Project. These features when combined with results from the Company’s work program clearly demonstrate that the VIP Project warrants significant additional detailed follow-up exploration including drilling.
Wolf Claim Block Addition
Nevada Zinc recently made a significant addition to its overall VIP Project land position by acquiring the 64 Wolf claims that are located within the existing boundaries of the VIP Project. The Wolf claim group measures approximately 4 kilometres by 4 kilometres. One item of particular interest just outside the Wolf claims on the VIP claims is the discovery of remnants of historic, never recorded, placer gold operations near the eastern boundary of the Wolf claims on the VIP block. Early in 2016 the Company completed reprocessing of the magnetic data from its 2010 airborne geophysical survey and the interpretation of the data has helped define new targets that warrant field follow-up at a number of locations on the VIP Project including a new target outlined in the Company’s exploration program late last year that discovered a new single line, open ended, multi-element soil geochemical anomaly that is defined by anomalous values in gold, silver, antimony, bismuth, mercury and telurium. The anomalous values appear to be associated with a magnetic low feature that can be traced for several kilometres and is located in an area with no previous sampling. This suite of anomalous elements is very similar to the suite of anomalous elements at the Casino and Coffee deposits.
Corporate
The Company continues to be focused on its highly prospective Lone Mountain zinc exploration assets located in Nevada while concurrently allocating resources to its gold exploration targets in Yukon. In addition to its VIP Project the Company also holds a large block of claims referred to as the Goodman Project that cover the along trend extension of the gold and silver mineralization trends being actively explored by Victoria Gold Corporation. The Company also holds a significant land position at Josephine Creek where it holds both hardrock and placer rights along Josephine Creek adjacent to land also held by Victoria Gold. In addition, the Company holds the dominant land position in the Livingstone Creek placer gold district northeast of Whitehorse where its land position was acquired to cover the upstream portion of several historic placer creeks that have produced some of the largest gold nuggets discovered in Yukon since the days of the original Yukon Gold Rush, weighing up to more than 20 ounces. The Livingstone area, arguably the only placer gold district in Yukon for which a significant gold in bedrock source has not yet been located, was once a thriving community of more than 300 people and now sits as an abandoned village. The Company has in fact discovered significant gold in bedrock in its most recent work on the Livingstone property. Geochemistry of the nuggets and this new discovery of gold in bedrock by the Company appears to be part of the source for the extremely large nuggets that are still being found occasionally by the placer miners.
Bruce Durham, P.Geo, is a qualified person, as that term is defined by National Instrument 43-101, and on behalf of the Company has approved the contents contained in this press release.
About Nevada Zinc
Nevada Zinc is a discovery driven mineral exploration company with a proven management team focussed on identifying unique opportunities in mineral exploration that can provide significant value to its shareholders. The Company’s existing zinc and gold projects are located in Nevada and Yukon, respectively.
The Lone Mountain Project
While the Company maintains its highly prospective Yukon gold properties and continues to advance them, the current focus of the Company is the exploration and advancement of the highly prospective Lone Mountain Zinc Project comprised of 224 claims covering approximately 4,000 acres near Eureka, Nevada.
The Lone Mountain Project is located in east-central Nevada and is easily accessible via paved and gravel roads northwesterly from Eureka where all essential services are available. The land that comprises the project includes options, leases or purchase agreements to acquire 100% interests in all properties along the key structural trend for more than three kilometres. Additional drill hole assay results are pending.
For further information please contact:
Nevada Zinc Corporation Suite 1660, 141 Adelaide St. West Toronto, Ontario M5H 3L5 Tel: 416-504-8821
Bruce Durham, President and CEO bdurham@nevadazinc.com
Neither the TSX Venture Exchange nor its Regulation Services Provider (as that term is defined in the policies of the TSX Venture Exchange) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release.
This news release may contain forward-looking statements including but not limited to comments regarding the timing and content of upcoming work programs, geological interpretations, receipt of property titles, potential mineral recovery processes, etc. Forward-looking statements address future events and conditions and therefore, involve inherent risks and uncertainties. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.
