Evolving Gold acquires a major land position in the Carlin Trend, Nevada
Drilling underway to offset high grade results from CAR-007
May 3, 2010, Vancouver, British Columbia: Evolving Gold Corp. (TSXV: EVG) (FSE: EV7) (the “Company”) announces that it has acquired a major land position at the south end of the Carlin Trend in northern Nevada. The Carlin Trend has produced over 75 million ounces of gold since the 1960’s. Evolving Gold now controls approximately 53 square miles, or 137 square kilometers, at the south end of the Trend. Located between the Gold Quarry operation to the north and the Rain district to the south, this land position is one of the largest on the Carlin Trend.
Evolving Gold is currently drilling near the town of Carlin, Nevada, to follow up on previously reported high grades intersected in drill hole CAR-007. As reported on February 25, 2010, intersections in this drill hole included 4.6 meters at 31.0 gpt Au (15.0 ft at 0.905 opt Au) and 3.0 meters at 14.1 gpt Au (10.0 ft at 0.411 opt Au). The highest single assay result in CAR-007 is 1.5 meters at 57.9 gpt Au (5.0 ft at 1.69 opt Au). Averaging two high grade intervals with intervening low grade in CAR-007 results in 18.3 meters at 11.7 gpt Au (60.0 ft at 0.340 opt Au), starting at a depth of 928 meters (3,045 ft) down hole. Mineralization is interpreted to be relatively flat lying, and drill hole CAR-007 is a nearly vertical drill hole. Additional drilling, currently underway, is required to more clearly define the true thickness of the mineralization.
Evolving Gold has acquired a major position of approximately 53 square miles (137 square kilometers) of mineral rights in the south Carlin Trend, in the area between the Gold Quarry and Rain gold mines. The land package is a mixture of privately held mineral rights, acquired by lease and purchase options, and federal lode mining claims.
More than half of the mineral rights are private holdings. These holdings insulate Evolving Gold from any proposed changes in the U.S. federal mining law and can be a significant advantage during permitting.
Approximately two thirds of the mineral rights are controlled 100 percent by Evolving Gold. Only one third are subject to an agreement with subsidiaries of the Newmont Mining Corporation that includes a back-in right.
Royalty obligations are variable but average less than a 1.5% NSR production royalty.
Evolving Gold has also negotiated surface access agreements for private, fee surface lands associated with its land package in the south Carlin Trend.
Evolving Gold plans a drill program in 2010 of approximately ten deep core holes to further explore the favorable geology and excellent exploration potential around the high grade results of CAR-007.
“Evolving Gold started its exploration program in the south end of the Carlin Trend based on a geological interpretation that potentially economic grades and thicknesses of gold mineralization could be discovered at reasonable mining depths,” states Quinton Hennigh, President and Chief Geologist. “The high grade results reported earlier for drill hole CAR-007 have validated this exploration concept. With this encouragement, Evolving Gold has moved aggressively to assemble a major package of mineral rights and surface access agreements in this highly prospective area of Nevada. Follow-up drilling is already underway.”
Robert Barker, CEO, comments, “Evolving Gold believes that the future of the prolific Carlin Trend is with high grade underground deposits. The large open pit operations are in the later stages of their production history, and the demand for high grade gold feed for existing processing plants should only increase in the near future. Evolving Gold has positioned itself to take advantage of this opportunity and plans an aggressive drilling program to follow up on the results from CAR-007.”
The recent acquisition of private mineral rights, and access rights for private surface lands, involves eleven agreements. These include four leases on mineral rights, five option to purchase agreements for mineral rights, and two surface access agreements. All agreements include a 90 day due diligence period to verify title and ownership, and are subject to regulatory approval. Total expenditure for all leases and option to purchase agreements is approximately US$1.45 million in 2010, or US$91 per acre (US$226 per hectare). Evolving Gold has the right to terminate any of these agreements at its sole option. The land area involved in the lease agreements may be reduced, thereby reducing the annual payments. If all option to purchase agreements are maintained, after four years Evolving Gold will own 100% of the mineral rights, by exercise of these purchase options, on approximately 10,097 acres (4,086 hectares), for a total estimated cost of US$9.7 million. If certain agreements are maintained, Evolving Gold will also be obligated to issue a total of 100,000 shares of Evolving Gold stock, half in October 2014 and half in February 2015, and an additional total of 200,000 shares upon initiation of commercial production on lands covered by the agreements. A total of about 73% of the fee mineral rights subject to the option to purchase agreements lies outside of the Newmont area of interest and is not subject to the agreement with the Newmont subsidiaries. Evolving Gold will actively manage this land package and expects to reduce holdings and annual holding costs as exploration proceeds. |
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