Mountain Lake increases Lunch Pond gold ounces by 14% in maiden NI 43-101 estimate

Mountain Lake Resources (CVE:MOA)(OTC:MLKRF) Tuesday reported the completion of an initial NI 43-101 resource estimate for the Lunch Pond area of its 100 percent-owned Glover Island gold property in Newfoundland.
Compared to historical resources, the company said the NI 43-101 resource for Lunch Pond indicates a 27.8 percent decrease in grade, offset by a 57.4 percent increase in tonnage, resulting in a 14.1 percent increase in contained gold ounces.
At a cut-off grade of 0.5 grams per tonne (g/t), Lunch Pond has an estimated 66,400 ounces indicated gold grading 1.61 g/t, contained in 1.28 million tonnes. In the inferred category, the target has 196,900 ounces of gold grading 1.38 g/t, contained in 4.43 million tonnes.
"The company's objective is to delineate near-surface resources from the Glover Island property's 17 gold prospects that could be amenable to open pit mining and support a centrally located milling operation on the island," Mountain Lake's COO and exploration manager Paul Smith said.
"The upgrade of the Lunch Pond Deposit to NI 43-101 resource status is a successful first step in achieving our objective and gives us a solid base resource to build upon."
The resource estimate was conducted by P&E Mining Consultants.
Glover Island represents an under-explored mineral belt near the west coast of Newfoundland. This 11 kilometre mineral belt, termed the GI-Trend, is host to 17 gold-bearing prospects in addition to numerous gold anomalies that cross several rock types adjacent to a major terrain boundary.
Visible gold has been previously identified at six prospects along the GI-Trend, suggesting there is considerable gold potential remaining to be explored.
The company's phase I drill program consisted of 41 holes, in addition to 35 historical holes at the Lunch Pond deposit, for a combined total of 76 holes, or 15,452 metres.
Phase I drilling also confirmed the thinner zones of gold mineralization as noted by historical exploration.  At the conclusion of this phase of drilling, several holes were drilled at the west margin of the west grid in an attempt to locate the thicker mineralized breccia zone as observed in hole LPSE-12-70, and to determine the offset directions of the faulting in this area of the grid.
Mountain Lake said the results suggest that at this location, both the thicker breccia zone and the coincident gold mineralization are faulted to the north and are projected under a large bog. Further work is required to locate this faulted extension, it added.
The company's phase II exploration program on the property, to be carried out in 2012, will focus on the Kettle Pond South Zone and the Lucky Smoke (Quartz Pond) Zone, which are located at the extreme ends of the prospective GI-Trend.
The historical resource at the Kettle Pond South Zone is 450,000 tonnes at 2.3 g/t gold for 33,276 ounces of gold, and drill hole intercepts include 6.62 g/t gold over 6.5 metres in hole KPS-2.
Historical drill hole intercepts at the Lucky Smoke Zone include 10.2 g/t gold over 8.0 metres in hole LS-1.
Additional exploration will target drill-ready prospects at Lunch Pond C and Lunch Pond North - both located east of the Lunch Pond Deposit - as well as the Discovery Vein & Rusty Vein Prospect, the 2700 Zone, the Tomahawk Zone and the Keystone & Jacamar Prospects.
Mountain Lake is a junior exploration company engaged in the exploration and development of mineral properties located in Newfoundland.