• Mineral Production Sharing Agreement (MPSA) granted

• Exploration program underway 

• Potential for large-scale porphyry copper-gold mineralization system

• Exploration supports historical findings and has discovered new prospects

• Free, prior and informed consent received from local community
  

The Tamarok copper and gold exploration project is located 60 kilometres (37 miles) north-northeast of our Balabag project and is within our North Zamboanga tenement package. 

In December 2009, we commenced exploration activities at Tamarok that included geophysical surveys and geological investigations.  On April 11, 2011, we initiated a drill program to test an outcropping zone of porphyry copper-gold mineralization. Results from the initial four holes revealed faulting and dismemberment of the mineralization and we decided to temporarily suspend further drilling until additional surveys could be undertaken to better define the structural setting.

Since that time, two new zones of porphyry style mineralization have been discovered in outcrop and have been subjected to systematic soil geochemical sampling, geological mapping and magnetic surveying studies.  Drill testing is expected to resume in Q1, 2012.  

Previous exploration work

Significant surface exploration, including geological mapping and rock/channel sampling, has been carried out over the Tamarok area, where a diorite intrusive measuring approximately 9 kilometres (5.6 miles) long and 1.5 to 2.5 kilometres (0.9 to 1.6 miles) wide trending northwest, has been identified that hosts porphyry copper-gold style mineralization. Assay results from channel samples from the mineralized diorite are consistent with, and have extended, the historical results of previous operators. Recent exploration work, including an airborne geophysical program, has also identified a number of new occurrences of interest. The results of the initial exploration work indicate the potential for a sizeable porphyry copper-gold system at Malachite Hill, where channel sampling produced a 38 metre (124.7 foot) wide zone grading 0.70% copper and 0.40 g/t gold. 

Mineralization description

Mineralization at Tamarok is hosted in an approximately 50 metre (164 foot) exposure of magnetite-biotite-potassic feldspar-silica altered hornblende diorite with a chlorite-clay-sericite overprint. Chalcopyrite and bornite mineralization occurs as minor disseminations and in sheeted quartz veins and stockworks. Strong malachite-azurite-limonite staining has been observed. The host diorite might represent a single phase in an apparently multiphase diorite intrusive. Beyond the porphyry copper outcrop at Malachite Hill, alteration in the diorite is predominantly propylitic (chlorite-pyrite-epidote). There are indications of later epithermal overprint, occurring as drussy quartz veinlets and chalcedonic quartz veins along some silicified zones. The diorite body intrudes into the ophiolitic, volcanic and clastic country rocks including possible coeval volcanics. This diorite is unconformably overlain by younger sandstones-siltstones at its SW margin, while a Lower to Middle Miocene limestone (based on paleontological study) overlies this intrusive at its south-eastern end. Younger andesite dikes trending north northwest transect this intrusive body. Northwest trending faults and fractures occur in the area, commonly having left lateral movement.