The JQW and Roche Kreek anomalies both lie along a 10 km long north south-trending mineralized gold belt at Benzdorp that has historically produced over one million oz gold. Anomalous samples in both of these large new gold anomalies were actually found by Canarc’s reconnaissance soil sampling program in 1996 but the follow up work was only recently completed.

Five of the soil samples are particularly high grade, (12.82 gpt, 11.99, 5.31, 5.17 and 0.59 gpt gold), confirming a generally high grade northeasterly trend to the mineralization at JQW. Since the host rocks appear to be sheared, saproplitized mafic volcanics, the JQW anomaly could represent higher grade, vein-type mineralization flanking the lower grade, porphyry-style mineralization in the JQA prospect. Further evidence of a major mineralized, northeast-trending shear structure along Pointu Kreek, which separates JQW from JQA, is provided by two recent 2 m wide chip samples in porknocker pits along the creek bank, that returned 44.4 gpt and 18.0 gpt gold respectively. If continuous across Pointu Kreek, the JQA-JQW mineralized system would appear to be over 1000 m wide.

The Roche Kreek anomaly lies 4 km south of the main JQA prospect and measures 700m long and 120 m to 280 m wide, open to the north and south. A total of 22 soil samples range up to 833 ppb gold and average 234 ppb gold. It should be noted that the host rock at Roche Kreek is a diorite intrusion similar to the one hosting the JQA prospect. Copper and molybdenum are also anomalous at Roche Kreek. Therefore, the target here will likely be another porphyry-style body similar to JQA.

The geochemical sampling program is now being extended north of JQA, east into selected portions of the JQB prospect and to the south along strike from Roche Kreek. The machine trenching program has made slow progress due to heavy rainfall and equipment breakdowns. As a result, most of the bulldozer time has been focused on providing road access to drill sites for the upcoming diamond drilling program. A total of 30 drill sites have now been prepared. The diamond drill has been held in Customs but it should be released shortly pending determination of the import duties, if any.