Marathon PGM Announces New Geordie Lake Resource: Increased Metals, Grade and Tonnes
TORONTO, May 4 /CNW/ - Marathon PGM Corporation (MAR-TSX) ("Marathon") today announced the completion of an updated NI 43-101 compliant resource estimate for the Geordie Lake PGM-Cu Deposit, located 14 km west of the town of Marathon, Ontario. The new resource estimate is substantially larger than the previous estimate of July, 2008. The Geordie Lake resource has the potential to extend the projected mine life of the Marathon PGM-Cu deposit well beyond the current forecast of 11.5 years. The combined measured and indicated ("M+I") resource for the Marathon and the Geordie Lake deposits now exceeds approximately 146 million tonnes and contains 4.87 million ounces of PGM and gold, 8.88 million ounces of silver and 881.70 million pounds of copper. Please click http://www.marathonpgm.com/index21.html to view the Marathon district resources.
Highlights:
- M+I contained metals - Pd up 40.3%, Pt up 39.1%, Au up 8.5%, Cu up
34.7%, Ag up 57.8%
- M+I resource tonnage increased by 24.7% (up 6.43 million tonnes)
- bulk of resource situated within a 600 m strike length
- mineralization identified in drilling over a 1.5 km strike length
- rock sampling has identified anomalous Cu and PGM values on strike,
2 km to the north
Phillip Walford, President and CEO of Marathon commented, "Marathon's first drilling program on the Geordie Lake Deposit was highly successful in delineating the upper part of the higher grade central core. The potential to further expand the resource is very high. The Geordie Lake Deposit has the potential to extend the life of the nearby Marathon PGM-Cu project, which has a designed milling rate of 8.0 million tonnes per year and an estimated mine life of 11.5 years."
Total Resource above $13.00/tonne Cut-Off
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Pd Pt Au Ag
Mt Pd Pt Au Cu Ag 000 000 000 Cu 000
g/t g/t g/t % g/t oz oz oz M lb oz
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Meas-
ured 13.10 0.61 0.04 0.05 0.38 2.66 256.40 16.30 20.89 108.91 1120.3
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Indic-
ated 19.32 0.62 0.04 0.05 0.36 3.12 384.66 23.21 28.82 154.76 1937.6
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M+I 32.42 0.61 0.04 0.05 0.37 2.93 641 39.51 49.70 263.67 3,057.8
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Inferred 7.96 0.59 0.03 0.04 0.36 2.87 150.61 8.61 10.36 62.42 735.3
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(1) Mineral resources which are not mineral reserves do not have
demonstrated economic viability. The estimate of mineral resources
may be materially affected by environmental, permitting, legal,
title, taxation, sociopolitical, marketing, or other relevant issues.
(2) The quantity and grade of reported inferred resources in this
estimation are conceptual in nature and there has been insufficient
exploration to define these inferred resources as an indicated or
measured mineral resource and it is uncertain if further exploration
will result in upgrading them to an indicated or measured mineral
resource category.
The 2010 updated resource estimate for the Geordie Lake Deposit is based on 21 holes from Marathon's January 2010 campaign, 8 holes from a 1987 drill program by St. Joe Minerals, 9 holes from a 1999-2000 LEH Ventures ("LEH") drill program, 14 holes from a 2001 LEH drill program, 2 Diamond drill holes from the 2002 LEH drill program and 3 Diamond drill holes from the 2006 Discovery PGM drill program. Two holes drilled in 1997 were drilled parallel to the dip of the mineralized structure and were not used. The updated resource estimate was completed by independent geological consultant and Qualified Person, Martin Drennan, P.Eng of Python Mining Consultants of Hamilton, Ontario ("Python") and is expected to be filed on SEDAR (www.sedar.com) within 45 days.
Geordie Lake Deposit
The Geordie Lake deposit model consists of five mineralized "layers" which have been simplified to a hanging wall and main zone. Three dimensional ore bodies were created from a 25 metre section frequency along strike. Grade distributions for all metals were statistically analyzed and only a single silver assay was capped to the 95th percentile value. Composites 3 metres in length were formed from drill hole data passed through the mineralized layers. The block model was created using blocks of 2 m E-W, 2m N-S, 2 m vertical and populated by inverse distance squared interpolation. These results were compared with ordinary kriging and nearest neighbor (three interpolation methods were used in the analysis for grade distribution: Ordinary Kriging, Inverse Distance Squared, Nearest Neighbour with inverse distance being adopted as the best representation for this data set). Tonnes and grade have been limited to within the ore shells by means of the partial percentage application.
Metal prices used in Python's estimate were Cu USD 2.91/lb, Au USD 819/oz, Pt USD 1347/oz and Pd USD 321/oz, and Ag USD 14.1/oz. The US/CDN exchange rate was $0.87. The metal prices and exchange rate utilized were based on a 5-year average and exchange rate from February 2010. Average recoveries were taken from the bulk sample metallurgy test completed by Process Research - Cu 90.8%, Pd 80.1%, Pt 71%, Au 79.9%, and Ag 74.5%.
The mineral resources in this press release were estimated using the Canadian Institute of Mining, Metallurgy and Petroleum (CIM), CIM Standards on Mineral Resources and Reserves, Definitions and Guidelines prepared by the CIM Standing Committee on Reserve Definitions and adopted by CIM Council December 11, 2005.
David Good, Ph.D., P. Geo., VP of Exploration, is Marathon's Qualified Person in compliance with National Instrument 43-101 with respect to this release. Dr. Good has reviewed the contents for accuracy and has approved this press release on behalf of Marathon.
About Marathon PGM Corporation:
Marathon is exploring resource development potential in the immediate vicinity of the Marathon Deposit to expand the life of the planned large tonnage, open pit mining operation. The Marathon Deposit is one of the largest PGM-Cu reserves in Canada and is expected to grow with the development of additional nearby resources. Marathon's optimized P+P reserve of approximately 91.45 million tonnes grading 0.832 g/t Pd, 0.237 g/t Pt, 0.085 g/t Au, 0.247% Cu and 1.44 g/t Ag, contains approximately 2.44 million ounces of Pd, 696,000 ounces of Pt, 251,000 ounces of Au, 497 million lbs of Cu and 4.23 million ounces of Ag. Marathon also has development and exploration stage properties in southeastern Manitoba and western Newfoundland respectively. Marathon's Management plans to build on its experience through the advancement of its properties and by examining other strategic opportunities.
CAUTIONARY STATEMENT REGARDING FORWARD-LOOKING INFORMATION
Except for statements of historical fact relating to Marathon, certain information contained herein constitutes "forward-looking statements". Forward-looking statements include statements that are predictive in nature, depend upon or refer to future events or conditions, or include words such as "expects", "anticipates", "plans", "believes", "considers", "intends", "targets", or negative versions thereof and other similar expressions, or future or conditional verbs such as "may", "will", "should", "would" and "could". We provide forward-looking statements for the purpose of conveying information about our current expectations and plans relating to the future and readers are cautioned that such statements may not be appropriate for other purposes. By its nature, this information is subject to inherent risks and uncertainties that may be general or specific and which give rise to the possibility that expectations, forecasts, predictions, projections or conclusions will not prove to be accurate, that assumptions may not be correct and that objectives, strategic goals and priorities will not be achieved. These risks and uncertainties include but are not limited to those identified and reported in Management's Discussion and Analysis for the year ended December 31, 2009.
Other than as specifically required by law, we undertake no obligation to update any forward-looking statement to reflect events or circumstances after the date on which such statement is made, or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events, whether as a result of new information, future events or results otherwise.
%SEDAR: 00020574E
For further information: David Leng, P.Geo:. Tel: (416) 849-3432, dleng@marathonpgm.com
.