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
<<
The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept
responsibility for the adequacy or the accuracy of this release.
>>
