Letter of Intent To Acquire Gold Project In French Guiana

 

VANCOUVER, BC - Columbus Gold Corp. has signed a Letter of Intent (LOI) to acquire a pending exploration permit from a third party as part of its strategy to consolidate a portfolio of high-quality gold exploration projects in French Guiana, France.

The exploration permit covers the core of one of the most prominent placer gold mining districts in French Guiana, which is currently exposed to illegal artisanal hard rock mining of high-grade quartz-gold veins.  The project area is interpreted to be underlain by prospective greenstone belt volcanic rocks, although the local geology remains poorly understood and unexplored despite intense placer mining activity in the past.  The exploration permit has good access by well-maintained forestry roads, which provides for simple and low-cost logistics for transportation and exploration.

Columbus has conducted a preliminary geological evaluation of the project area.  An important shear-tension vein system exposed by mine workings was prospected over a lateral distance of 1.6 kilometers.  Quartz vein material sampled on the dumps of workings returned best gold values of 13.10, 24.35, 67.40, 96.25 and 160.00 g/t gold.  Other mineralized vein and vein stockwork prospects sampled outside this structural corridor returned best values of 4.86 g/t gold and 20.21 g/t gold.  Two principal quartz-gold vein assemblages were observed during the prospecting; 1) a white sugary quartz with no visible sulfides, and 2) a milky to smoky quartz containing abundant iron oxide casts from the oxidation of copper (covellite) and iron sulfides.  Silver is associated with high gold values in veins with a silver-to-gold ratio of up to 2:1.

Over the project area, the bedrock is deeply weathered, typical of tropical climates, rendering geological interpretation difficult.  The prospected gold-(copper)-(silver) vein structural zone occurs on the north edge of a prominent circular topographic feature.  Locally observed potassic alteration (sericite and K-feldspar), amphibolite grade contact metamorphism and copper sulfide minerals in veins are indicative of an intrusive-related mineralized system. 

Rock Lefrançois, President and Chief Executive Officer, said, "We are very excited of the addition of this early-stage gold play, which diversifies Columbus‚ portfolio in French Guiana in combination with the Montagne‚Or mine development project and the more advanced-stage Maripa exploration project.  Our initial evaluation has highlighted a very favorable setting for a large gold system.

A total of 89 select rock samples of deeply weathered bedrock, mine working dump samples, blocks, float and colluvial material were gathered by Columbus geologists and consultants during prospecting.  Individual samples were sealed in heavy duty cellophane plastic bags and placed by batch in sealed polypropylene bags and delivered by Columbus personnel to the Filab Amsud depot in Cayenne for trucking to the Filab Amsud laboratory in Paramaribo, Suriname, an ISO 9001 accredited laboratory.  Samples were assayed for gold by the fire-assay method using an atomic absorption finish on a 50-gram pulp split, and by ICP-MS multi-element analysis, including silver and copper.