Strongbow Exploration Inc. has been notified by Westhaven Ventures Inc. that assay results have been returned from a five hole, 778 m exploration drilling program completed at the Shovelnose gold property, approximately 30 km south of Merritt, British Columbia. The 2012 drilling program has expanded low sulphidation gold mineralization at the Tower showing over a 220 metre east-west extent, including drill hole SN12-04 which intersected 50.4 metres grading 0.54 g/t Au and 4.77 g/t Ag. The majority of the 2012 drilling program focused on testing the Tower Zone and the adjacent Tower Creek valley. True widths are not known due to limited drilling. All significant intervals contain gold grades greater than 0.1 g/t Au, with no more than 3 consecutive metres of material grading less than 0.1 g/t Au.
Drill holes SN12-02, SN12-03 and SN12-04 were all positioned to follow-up 2011 drill hole 11SH-04 which tested the Tower Zone and returned 55.8 metres grading 0.21 g/t Au and 0.78 g/t Ag. SN12-02, collared 27 m northeast of 11SH-04 and drilled vertically, returned comparable results (56.3 m grading 0.22 g/t Au and 0.86 g/t Ag). Drill hole SN12-03 was collared 26 m northeast of SN12-02, drilled at an angle of -45(0) to the northeast, and intersected a slightly more discontinuous mineralized interval. SN12-04, collared 115 m to the southwest of SN12-02, was drilled at a -45(0) angle to the southwest to test the Tower Creek valley and returned the best results of the program, intersecting 50.4 metres grading 0.54 g/t Au and 4.77 g/t Ag, which includes 13.7 metres grading 0.91 g/t Au and 6.65 g/t Ag. Together these four holes define a 220 metre wide east-west mineralized system consisting of dark grey, variably pyrite bearing, quartz veins and silica flooding. Mineralization is hosted within a strong to intense silica altered sequence of heterolithic rhyolite lapilli tuffs of the Pimainus Formation -- Spences Bridge Group. The geometry of mineralization is unknown but is interpreted to be crudely stratiform, as well as fault zone hosted in the case of the westernmost hole, SN12-04. It is presently unclear how this mineralization relates to the bonanza grade epithermal quartz veins, ranging from background values up to 38.2 g/t gold and 93.7 g/t Ag, previously discovered at the Mik Zone and located 275 m to the southwest.
Drill hole SN12-01 tested the Tower Creek valley 380 metres northwest of SN12-04 and encountered weak to moderate silicification with locally anomalous gold values. A resistivity anomaly located east of the SN12-01 drill collar suggests that a northern extension of the strong silicification and gold mineralization encountered in SN12-04 could occur further to the east of, and have been missed by, SN12-01. Drill hole SN12-05 tested the center of a 1,100 m long, northwest trending gold-in-soil geochemical anomaly, located 720 m to the north of the Tower Zone. No significant results were returned from this drill hole, however several zones of weak to moderate silica and clay alteration were encountered along with locally anomalous gold values.