FIRESTONE VENTURES COMPLETES FIELDWORK ON ANTELOPE ZINC-LEAD-SILVER PROJECT
Firestone Ventures Inc. has completed the phase one surface exploration program consisting of geologic and alteration mapping, and rock and soil sampling on the company's Antelope zinc-lead-silver property 75 kilometres southwest of Eureka, Nev., United States.
"The field program at Antelope was completed on schedule. All samples have been submitted to the lab and the field crew is currently exploring other surface zinc-lead-silver showings in Nevada," says Lori Walton, president of Firestone Ventures. "Market conditions for zinc have improved considerably from 50 U.S. cents per pound in December, 2008, to a current price of 95 U.S. cents per pound."
A total of 883 soil samples were collected at the Antelope property over a four-square-kilometre area on 50-metre by 100-metre spacing. In addition, mapping defined extensive hydrothermal alteration (along north-trending structures over a strike length of four km) in addition to zinc carbonate (smithsonite), and minor sphalerite and galena mineralization. A total of 139 rock samples were collected. Sample results are pending.
Zinc mineralization hosted in lower Ordovician Hanson Creek formation was discovered on the Antelope property in the 1980s. Reverse circulation drilling took place between 1985 and 1990. Since then, intermittent geologic mapping and geochemical sampling were carried out by various parties. Zinc mineralization (smithsonite with minor sphalerite and galena) is exposed in a 15 m long trench trending east-west and in a series of prospect pits and hydrothermal alteration over a four km window of outcropping Paleozoic limestone. Chip samples collected from the bottom of the trench contained from 22.3 per cent to 32 per cent zinc and from 1.51 per cent to 3.0 per cent lead over 15 m (see news in Stockwatch Jan. 12, 2010).
Zinc mineralization at Antelope is a replacement of carbonate rocks, similar to the company's Torlon Hill zinc-lead-silver deposit in Guatemala, Central America. Firestone is exploring numerous zinc occurrences in a belt of Permian to Cretaceous carbonate rocks extending over 200 km across Guatemala.
Firestone has an option to earn 100-per-cent interest in the Antelope project through lease option agreements signed with two underlying vendors. Firestone has staked an additional 31 mineral claims, bringing the total Antelope land package up to 49 lode mining claims (400 hectares). |
