Eastmain announces 40,000-metre drill program at Clearwater project

Eastmain Resources (TSE:ER) reported Friday that a 40,000-metre drill program is underway on its wholly-owned Clearwater project, located in James Bay, Québec.
The company said that the objectives of the program are to continue to expand the limits of the Eau Claire gold deposit at the Clearwater project, and test new prospective resource targets.
Eastmain said that half of this year's drilling will be focused on increasing the size of high-grade measured and indicated gold resources in the 450 and 850 West Zones, located just west of the Eau Claire gold deposit, which may be amenable to extraction by open pit methods.
Drilling and trenching in 2011 resulted in a 550-metre long expansion of a near-surface, gold-bearing vein system at the 850 West Zone, potentially adding to previously-defined open pit resources, said the company.
Results revealed a stacked series of gold-bearing, quartz-tourmaline veins, ranging from 0.5 to 25.5 metres in thickness, within the 850 West and Gap Zones.
Veins ranged in grade from 0.50 to 60.5 grams per tonne (g/t) gold, and up to 88.75 g/t tellurium, with an average grade of 6.50 g/t gold over 6.09 metres.
Eastmain noted that estimated potential open pit resources within the Eau Claire and 450 West Zone, as of April 2011, contained 2,729,000 tonnes of measured and indicated resources at an average grade of 5.15 g/t gold containing 452,000 ounces gold (502,000 ounces gold at 5.72 g/t uncapped) and 1,398,000 tonnes inferred open pit resources at an average grade of 2.56 g/t containing 115,000 ounces gold (127,000 ounces gold at 2.83 g/t uncapped).
Also as of April 2011, the company said drilling below the 450 West Zone outlined 130,000 ounces of gold as measured and indicated underground resources at an average grade of 6.46 g/t gold and 905,000 ounces gold as inferred underground resources at an average grade of 7.18 g/t gold.
The current resource, which does not include any drilling post 2009, does not contain the 100 gold-bearing intercepts from the 850 West Zone drilling or high-grade results reported from the Rebecca Collins (RC) Soccer Field trench in 2011, said Eastmain.
The company said 2012 drilling is currently testing the northern limits of the 450 West Zone, where a stacked series of quartz-tourmaline veins has been intersected north of the estimated open pit resource.
Hole ER12-353, the third hole of this season's program, has intersected visible gold at a depth of 138.6 metres.
Eastmain reported that the visible gold occurs within an interval containing 25 quartz tourmaline veins, ranging from 0.1 to 6.5 metres in thickness, extending from surface to 150-metres down the hole.
The company said that the 2012 exploration campaign will also include drill testing and trenching of high-priority targets lateral to the Eau Claire gold deposit, as well as property-scale surface exploration in an effort to discover additional deposits elsewhere on the project.
Several targets at the property have not yet been drill tested, including Pascal, Natel, Vanna, Serendipity and Knight. Eastmain said additional trenching and definition drilling will continue in 2012 to test these target areas, as well as the resource potential of the RC Soccer Field Trench.
In December 2011, the company closed a $5.75 million financing to fund exploration at the project.