Finlay Minerals Ltd. press release
Finlay Minerals Ltd. - Initial Results from Atlas gold-silver zones, B.C.
TSXV - TSX Venture Exchange · Copper · Gold · Silver · Molybdenum · Zinc · Canada
VANCOUVER, Aug. 17 /CNW/ - The Board of Directors of Finlay Minerals Ltd. ("The Company") is pleased to announce some preliminary results from the Atlas gold-silver zones on the Pil North property. The first phase of the 2006 exploration program at the Atlas East and West zones has commenced. Exploration work includes detailed soil sampling, trenching, road construction and drill site preparation. A magnetometer and EM survey will be completed this week. Core drilling will commence in the next seven to ten days. Mapping and soil sampling at Atlas East has delineated extensive silica and clay alteration and revealed gold and silver values in soils up to 3640 ppb and 45.9 ppm respectively. The gold and silver soil maps will soon be posted on the Company website. Rock sampling has returned multi-gram gold and silver values and has extended the Atlas East mineralization to the south and west. Anomalous gold and silver-in-soil cover an area 600 metres long and up to 200 metres wide. The newly constructed road within this anomaly exposes zones of epithermal silicification exceeding 20 metres in road-cut length. Silica stockworks and pyritic silica breccias, some of which contain visible gold and silver mineralization, were discovered. Gerry Ray, PhD, is presently geologically mapping the Atlas Zones and new access roads, with emphasis on alteration patterns and structural controls on the epithermal gold-silver mineralization. In 2005, the Atlas East Zone emerged as a new and very exciting epithermal gold-silver exploration target. Initial surface sampling revealed abundant mineralized talus float and outcrop consisting of silicified, quartz stockwork-veined and brecciated andesite volcanics. Gold-silver mineralization is associated with a prominent rusty gossan zone hosted by pyritic andesite. Mineralized rock has been traced over an area of 500 metres east-west and up to 200 metres north-south. Gold and silver occurring as electrum, native gold, and argentite have been found in both float and bedrock. Soil and PIMA analysis of the clay-silica minerals suggests the Atlas East Zone lies close to the top of a hydrothermal system. In such systems, high-level clay-silica alteration can pass downward into precious metal mineralization. Testing this will be a high priority in the upcoming drill program. The Atlas West Zone lies 600 meters WNW of Atlas East. Here, three trenches excavated during the 1980s, exposed epithermal silica-amethyst veining that contained up to 1.58 ppm gold and 140 ppm silver. In 2006, westerly excavation from one of these trenches revealed even more massive silicification and breccias, together with some amethyst veining across widths of at least ten metres. The surrounding volcanics also contain silica stockworks that are currently untested. The company plans to conduct the first ever drilling of the Atlas West zone during the 2006 program.
B.C. Finlay Minerals Ltd. trades under the symbol "FYL" on the TSX Venture Exchange. Warner Gruenwald, P.Geo is the Qualified Person, as defined by National Instrument 43-101, and responsible for the preparation of the technical information in this release. Sample analysis is being conducted by Assayers Canada of Vancouver. Documentation about the Company and properties can be viewed on the company's website at www.finlayminerals.com.
On behalf of the Board of Directors,
Robert Brown, P. Eng., President
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