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Cougar's primary exploration focus in 2009 is on its holdings close to San Gold Corporation's Rice Lake Mine in southeastern Manitoba. Cougar holds, by way of 5 option agreements (news releases April 9th, April 20th, May 19th, July 31st, August 10th, 2009) 4 non-contiguous properties located approximately 200 km northeast of Winnipeg, Manitoba, near the town of Bissett. Cougar’s properties (PFG/Bill, Conley, Vena, Wyatt) contain 38 claims, in total, which cover an area of 5,916 hectares.
The company’s PFG/Bill property immediately adjoins San Gold’s Rice Lake Mine property. The Rice Lake Mine has total gold content (past production + proven/probable reserves) exceeding 1.8 million ounces. Aggressive exploration by San Gold has resulted in the discovery of several new deposits in the vicinity of the historic mine. The newly discovered high-grade Hinge, Cohiba and L-13 Zones are hosted by intermediate to felsic volcanics and volcaniclastics which are much higher in the stratigraphic sequence than the gabbro sill which hosts the Rice Lake Mine. Until recently, these rocks were considered non-prospective host rocks for gold mineralization. The Hinge Zone has now been developed by way of a decline, with development and stoping on several levels. San Gold recently announced that an 11,762 ton bulk sample was completed from the Hinge Zone, with 5,938 ounces of gold recovered. Average stoping grades of 26.3 g/t Au and average development grades of 21.2 g/t Au were reported for the Main Hinge Lens #1 (San Gold Corp. news release July 14, 2009). Aggressive exploration is continuing from surface and at depth in the Rice Lake Mine, with continued favourable results reported (San Gold Corp. news release, July 30th, August 25th, September 9th, October 20, 2009). Information about the Rice Lake Mine, including a presentation at the Mid-Canada Investment Forum by Dale Ginn, San Gold CEO, is available on San Gold's web-site, www.sangoldcorp.com.. For the best description of the Hinge Zone and Rice Lake Mine, readers are encouraged to visit the featured link.
The Rice Lake area is part of the Uchi Subprovince, a 500 kilometre long by 50 kilometre wide belt, which extends through eastern Manitoba and across southern Ontario. It includes several discrete bands of Mesoarchean and Neoarchean volcanic rocks (greenstone belts), including the Rice Lake and Wallace Lake Greenstone Belts in Manitoba, and the Red Lake, Birch-Uchi and Pickle Lake Greenstone Belts in Ontario. These greenstone belts are hosts to significant gold mineralization. San Gold’s Rice Lake Mine, and Cougar Minerals’ PFG/Bill, Vena and Wyatt properties are located in the Rice Lake Greenstone Belt, while the Conley property is located in the Wallace Lake Greenstone Belt. The Rice Lake and Wallace Lake Greenstone Belts are geologically and structurally analogous to the Red Lake Greenstone Belt of Ontario, where in excess of 25.5 million ounces of gold is known (past production + proven/probable reserves), but they remain remarkably under-explored by comparison.
Cougar completed initial surface programs on its Rice Lake area properties in 2009. This work included stripping and detailed sampling of known veins on the PFG/Bill property, to prepare these targets for drill testing in the winter of 2009/2010. Basic prospecting and rock sampling was done on the PFG/Bill property and on the company’s other properties, and was successful in discovering many new quartz veins, with high grade gold values returned from several of these veins. Follow-up programs of stripping and drilling are planned for 2010.
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