Barrick drills for gold at Rimfire’s RDN project

Vancouver — Rimfire Minerals (RFM-V) reports that Barrick Gold (ABX-T) has kicked off a 3,000-metre drilling campaign at the RDN project in northwest British Columbia, 40 km northwest of the Eskay Creek gold-silver mine.

Barrick can earn a 75% interest in the property in return for spending $1.5 million on exploration. Once vested, Barrick is required to fund all exploration and engineering work until a production decision is made.

Exploration is focused on Eskay-equivalent stratigraphy. Previous work delineated target areas by anomalous soil geochemistry, specifically gold and arsenic plus or minus silver, copper, lead and zinc. In addition, targets were identified by the presence of gold-bearing, footwall feeder-style quartz-sulphide veining.

Barrick will continue to test the Wedge zone, where drilling last year intersected strong footwall-style alteration and mineralization. Mineralization hosted within this alteration includes pyrite, sphalerite, galena, chalcopyrite, as well as sulphosalts (tetrahedrite and tennantite). This alteration and mineralization, combined with chalcedonic quartz, orpiment, pyrobitumen and elevated mercury, are characteristic of shallow, marine, precious-metals-rich systems such as Eskay Creek.

The major will also test the Jungle anomaly, which represents a 100-by-450-metre gold-arsenic soil anomaly that overlies favourable stratigraphy. A boulder sample taken from this area assayed 25.4 grams gold per tonne. Two holes drilled in 1999 did not reach target depth, but one did intersect 5.19 grams gold over 1.1 metres.

Meanwhile, at Rimfire’s Thorn project, in northwestern British Columbia, First Au Strategies (FAV-V) intends to fund a 450-metre drill program. First Au stands to earn a 51% interest in the high-grade gold-silver-copper epithermal vein target in return for spending $1.2 million on exploration and paying $190,000 in cash and 250,000 shares by the end of 2004.

The property hosts 17 mineralized vein showings. Earlier this year, prospecting within a soil geochemical anomaly identified a new structure, known as the Oban zone, a float sample from which assayed 6,149 grams silver and 3.5 grams gold per tonne, plus 40% lead and 3.5% zinc. Plans call for two holes to target the I zone, two to target to Tamdhu zone, and one to test each of the MP Vein and L zones.

In March of this year, AngloGold (AU-N) optioned two properties from Rimfire in the Goodpaster district of Alaska, in the vicinity of Teck Cominco and Sumitomo’s Pogo Gold deposit. AngloGold stands to earn up to 70% interest in the two properties (Eagle and ER-Ogo-Fire) by making staged cash payments totalling US$100,000 per property and committing to US$900,000 in exploration expenditures per property. AngloGold is completing mapping, prospecting and geochemical surveys in order to identify drill targets.

Privately owned Stikine Gold recently optioned the William’s gold project in north-central British Columbia from Rimfire. Stikine intends to perform ground-based induced-polarization surveys, as well as prospecting and mapping, in order to refine targets for diamond drilling in 2003. William’s, (once called, more simply, “Bill”) hosts two styles of mineralization: high-grade gold in quartz-carbonate-sulphide veins and low-grade, disseminated and fracture-controlled mineralization.

Previous operators drilled the property in 1983 and 1984. Results included 2 metres grading 35 grams gold, 4 metres averaging 11 grams gold, and 2 metres averaging 24.8 grams gold. Several lower-grade intercepts encompass the high-grade material, including 148.7 metres averaging 1.17 grams gold.

Another property, Adam, was staked by Rimfire last spring. The property hosts a coincident copper-gold soil anomaly, as well as numerous reported gold showings. Rimfire believes the property hosts excellent potential for copper-gold porphyry-style mineralization. The junior will initiate a field program to test the project’s potential.

Rimfire recently purchased the Tide property from Newmont Canada, a subsidiary of Newmont Mining (NEM-N). The property is subject to a 1.5% net smelter return royalty and a 3-year first right of refusal. It is situated 36 km from tidewater at Stewart, B.C., and hosts a large polymetallic mineralized system in the heart of the Stewart-Unuk-Iskut metallogenic belt. Initial fieldwork last September identified massive sulphide vein float that assayed 105 grams gold and 598 grams silver. Rimfire is in advanced negotiations with a third party to option the property.

At present, Rimfire has 12.2 million shares outstanding and more than $1.1 million in working capital.