Mega Precious Metals pushes for Gold and Tungsten in Northeastern Manitoba

In this particular jurisdiction, there is no set process for resource development and no shortage of opinions on the topic so one could argue that the company’s biggest hurdles are not the rocks in the ground, but the great unknowns of regional and local politics.

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THUNDER BAY, ONTARIO–(Marketwired – May 22, 2014) –

Press Release Highlights:

• Mega’s 2014 drill program continues to define near surface high grade gold and gold/tungsten structures within a broader gold mineralized zone and multiple occurrences of visible gold (“VG”).
  • TL-14-526 intersects 61m of 3.44 g/t gold including 6.64 g/t gold over 30m
  • TL-14-518 intersects 52m of 1.34 g/t gold equivalent including 1.98 g/t gold over 31m plus 1.17% WO3 over 3.0m
  • TL-14-516 intersects 18.5m of 1.81 g/t gold including 2.71 g/t gold over 11.85m
  • TL-14-520 intersects 25m of 1.00 g/t gold including 1.40 g/t gold over 15m
• Additional gold and tungsten assays are pending from the ongoing 2014 OCAP and drill program

Mega Precious Metals Inc. (TSX VENTURE:MGP) (“Mega”) is pleased to announce an additional six (6) holes from its 29 hole, 4,784 m winter drill program on its 100% owned high grade gold and tungsten Monument Bay Project, located in Manitoba.

Prior to this year’s 2014 drill program, limited drilling had taken place in the top 100 m of the porphyritic dyke host rock and associated shear zones at the Twin Lakes Deposit. The results are especially significant because of the width of near surface high grade mineralization, up to 30m in true thickness, and Mega’s ability to continue to intersect continuous gold and gold/tungsten mineralization within a broader gold mineralized zone all within the upper 50 m of the deposit.

The results from TL-14-526 are among the highest gold intercepts with multiple occurrences of visible gold (VG) in the Twin Lakes Deposit. Drilling continues to demonstrate that appreciable high grade mineralization occurs within 25m of surface along the eastern edge of the proposed starter pit. Holes TL-14-513, TL-14-516, TL-14-518 to TL-14-520 were focused on converting near surface inferred low grade or waste material into considerable grade potential within the eastern/central portions of the current proposed pit shell. The current Monument Bay open-pittable resource covers a strike length of 8 kms with limited deep drilling.

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Mega Precious Metals is another example of a junior exploration company that has changed focus over the years. According to our good friend SEDAR, the company was known as Envirotreat Systems in the late 1990’s which as near as we can tell had nothing to do with mining. They later became Treat Systems and in 2007 became the mineral exploration company, Mega Silver Metals. For a year and a half  the company actively explored for Gold-Silver prospects in Mexico before acquiring the Headway property in the Red Lake District in 2009. In 2010 they acquired Rolling Rock Resources and with it the Monument Bay Project.

The Monument Bay project has been actively explored since the 1930’s and has switched hands on several occasions. There have been a number of resource estimates published and boat loads of work done, but throughout it’s history it has always been a gold project. Not until 2013 did anyone figure out that there was tungsten in the rock too!

Tungsten occurs in the mineral scheelite (CaWO₄) and is associated with the gold mineralization. One of the properties of the mineral scheelite is that it is fluoresces under UV light and the gold-scheelite association at Monument Bay was discovered in this way.

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Glen Kuntz, P.Geo, President and CEO, stated, “The 2014 drill program has definitively confirmed that there are multiple continuous high grade gold and gold tungsten mineralized horizons within the deposit. These horizons are providing further confidence in our geological model, our ability to continue to building resources and to realize the full potential of the Monument Bay Project.

The continuity of these intercepts along with previously reported gold and tungsten results are located in continuous shear zones that flank the broad QFP dike which hosts the majority of the gold and tungsten mineralization and suggest the potential for an economic Tungsten by-product credit due to the consistent nature of the gold and tungsten association throughout the Monument Bay Project. Mega’s decision to focus its efforts on near surface resource expansion, above 150 meters, has further strengthened the geological model and continues to added significant value for our shareholders.”

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Once a potentially economic resource has been established, the next step is to raise the confidence level in that resource. This generally involves “infill drilling”. Infill drilling is just what it sounds like – drilling between existing holes to (hopefully) establish continuity and increase confidence level in the resource data.

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2014 Gold and Tungsten Infill Drill Results

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In this deposit, Tungsten is considered to be an accessory commodity and here they have reported the combined tungsten/gold grades as an all-encompassing  gold equivalent calculation (AuEq). Equivalent calculations are often used in discussions of multi-metallic deposits and can be useful when comparing deposits of the same type like copper porphyries, where copper can occur along side gold, silver, molybdenum and other metals. However, these calculations require the conversion of grades using market prices for the commodities involved and often assume a 100% recovery of the metals. In this case, the company has posted the metals prices used for the calculation and indicated that, for the time being, they are assuming 100% recovery.

You can try our metal equivalent calculator to compare the changes in the Eq values resulting from changes in the various metal grades, market prices and recovery rates  [/box]

More than 12,000 m of new drilling (2013/2014) and over 8,000m of historical core from 64 drill holes of the OCAP program has yet to be incorporated into a new resource. Mega expects to provide an updated NI 43-101 resource during Q2/Q3 of 2014 which will encompass gold, tungsten and the results from the metallurgical testing program currently in progress. The Company has limited deep drilling at Monument Bay which is located in an Abitibi style Green Stone Belt and has the same style of gold and tungsten mineralization as the Hollinger Mine in the Timmins Camp. These types of deposits are known to extend beyond 2,000 m.

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]It’s common for junior exploration companies to draw comparisons to past and present producing mines or deposits. Mega precious metals here suggests that the resource identified at Monument Bay is not only similar geologically to rocks within the Abibiti Greenstone belt but also locally to the Hollinger Mine in Timmins, Ontario, Canada. The Abitibi Greenstone belt is world renowned for it’s Volcanic Massive Sulphide (VMS) deposits and structurally hosted gold deposits. The Hollinger Mine was closed in 1989 and produced 19.3 Million ounces of Gold during its life. GoldCorp currently owns the mine and has plans to re-open it as an open pit.[/box]

To date, all of the holes assayed for gold and tungsten have collectively increased the overall gold equivalent grade by a weighted average of approximately 30% when compared to the gold only results. As a point of reference, current Tungsten only mines have resource grades between 0.09 and 1.1% Tungsten with the average being ~0.49% Tungsten

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]Again, here is another example of comparisons between deposits. In this case the company is comparing the Tungsten grade from Monument Bay to the grade of other Tungsten mines. [/box]

The property is located on Crown property in an area of low topographic relief and outcrop is fairly rare. The Monument Bay Gold Project is located 52 km North of Red Sucker Lake First Nation (RSLFN), Manitoba.

Mega currently has winter road access to its camp from local communities. Manitoba’s Current Northern Development Strategy is building all-purpose roads and infrastructure improvements within the region. Once these are complete, we will have all purpose roads approximately 52 km of our project area.

The current power lines with very low electricity rates (estimated at $0.02-0.04/kWh) are approximately 48 kms from our project area.

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Once upon a time, mining companies would build a camp, fly in workers and leave when the the ore was gone. Local communities got left with a mess and little else. Nowadays, establishing good relations and project buy-in with local communities and First Nations is a foregone conclusion for mining companies in Canada. In this particular jurisdiction, there is no set process for resource development and no shortage of opinions on the topic so one could argue that the company’s biggest hurdles are not the rocks in the ground, but the great unknowns of regional and local politics. This is especially true in the far north where infrastructure is often lacking and political will is a necessary ingredient for its development. The company is reporting that the Manitoba Government’s nearby infrastructure improvements will benefit them.

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Technical Information

The design of Mega’s drilling programs, Quality Assurance/Quality Control and interpretation of results is under the control of Mega’s geological staff including qualified persons employing a QA/QC program consistent with NI 43‐101 and industry best practices. A detailed review of Mega’s QA/QC procedures is filed in the NI 43-101 report dated June 17, 2013 and on SEDAR.

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]At all stages of exploration, adhering to proper QA/QC procedures ensures accuracy with resource estimates by recognizing contamination or errors with the assay process.  [/box]

All drill core is transported by Company personnel from drill site to our camp for logging, sampling preparation are completed. Sampling intervals are defined after core logging and determination of scheelite content by examination under short‐wave UV‐light. One half of the core is sent for analysis, while the other half is retained in the core boxes for future reference. All samples are shipped to Accurassay Laboratories in Thunder Bay, Ontario and analyzed employing the appropriate gold fire assaying technique. For QA/QC purposes the Company as well as the lab submits standards and blanks every 20 samples. Samples are analyzed for W by XRF and Assay results for tungsten are reported by the laboratory as W%. WO3 values are calculated using a conversion factor of 1.2611. BC Energy & Mines

[box type=”note” align=”aligncenter” ]As of writing, Mega is trading at  trading at $0.145, just over halfway to their 52-week high of $0.27.[/box]

Glen Kuntz, P. Geo, President and CEO, is the Qualified Person for the information contained in this press release and is a Qualified Person defined by National Instrument 43-101. Glen was Sr. Resource Geologist at the Campbell Gold Mine and Global Spatial Data Systems Coordinator for Placer Dome, Vice President Enterprise Mining Solutions for Runge Ltd., and most recently, Chief Operating Officer with Mega Precious Metals.

Mega Precious Metals Inc. is a leading Canadian-based exploration company with a high quality pipeline of projects located in the mining friendly jurisdictions of Manitoba, Northwestern Ontario and Nunavut. The Company’s significant portfolio includes the flagship Monument Bay Gold Tungsten Project in NE Manitoba as well as the N. Madsen Gold Project in the prolific gold mining district of Red Lake, Ontario. Mega has established a record of delivering rapid growth through their focused and low cost approach to exploration and resource development. The Company’s common shares trade on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol MGP.

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