VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--(Marketwire - Feb. 4, 2010) - GEO MINERALS LTD. (TSX VENTURE:GM) ("GEO" or the "Company") is pleased to announce initial drilling results for the Copper Springs porphyry copper prospect located in south-central Arizona. Geo has a letter of intent with Bronco Creek Exploration Inc. ("BCE"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eurasian Minerals (TSX VENTURE:EMX), to earn a 100% interest in the project, with BCE serving as project operator.
The Copper Springs property, located approximately 90 miles east of Phoenix, consists of more than 5,000 acres in the Globe-Miami District — home to current mining operations by Quadra, BHP Billiton, Freeport-McMoRan, and others, with a combined district production and reserves of approx. 16 Mt of copper metal (Maher, 2008). New geologic work has led to the recognition that the district's known copper deposits are the faulted, tilted, and dismembered portions of a cluster of large porphyry copper-molybdenum systems centered on a Laramide-age granitic pluton. Of the porphyry centers identified in the district, the Copper Springs porphyry center — the southernmost center — has the largest exposed root zone alteration footprint and the largest, most productive capping vein system. The Geo-BCE property lies between the root zone exposed to the west and the capping vein system exposed to the east in the Globe Hills. A fault-bound structural block containing intense quartz-sericite-pyrite alteration and related copper mineralization that represents the productive intermediate levels of the Copper Springs porphyry center lies along the western boundary of the Geo-BCE property. Geo is targeting similar structural blocks interpreted to contain the bulk of porphyry copper mineralization within the Copper Springs center. These blocks are projected to lie beneath gravel cover rocks within the Geo-BCE property position.
A total of 1,189 meters (3,900 feet) of air-rotary and mud-rotary drilling was completed in two vertical drill holes, CSN-05 (518 meters) and CSN-06 (671 meters). Drill hole CSN-05 encountered unconsolidated gravels to a depth of 518 meters. Rock chips containing native copper were encountered in several intervals within this hole. Drill hole CSN-06 was collared 460 meters to the west-northwest of CSN-05, and encountered similar unconsolidated gravels to a depth of 430 meters. Between 424 and 431 meters depth, a volcanic tuff was encountered which may represent the Apache Leap Tuff, a regionally extensive mid-Tertiary volcanic rock that post-dates and often overlies the faulted and rotated blocks of Laramide porphyries. The presence of the volcanic rock in addition to a change in the characteristics of the recovered material suggested that an older Tertiary conglomerate had been intersected. This second conglomeratic unit, interpreted to be the Whitetail Conglomerate, continued for the remainder of the drill hole. At 482 meters, native copper was encountered along fractures and mineral boundaries in granitic fragments within the conglomerate. These native-copper-bearing granitic fragments continued for the next 189 meters, at which point drilling operations ceased due to technical challenges for the equipment on site. Drill hole CSN-06 was cased to 518 meters for future re-entry.
In this region of Arizona, conglomerates were often deposited upon structural blocks containing porphyry systems during extensional faulting and rotation during the mid-Tertiary period. In several porphyry copper mining districts in the region, the Whitetail Conglomerate and correlative formations comprise the oldest cover rock sequence, and often immediately overlie porphyry copper deposits and may host exotic copper mineralization. Samples from the mineralized interval in CSN-06 have been selected for assay.
Company president and chief executive officer Mike England states: "Geo Minerals is encouraged by these early stage drilling results at Copper Springs. We are excited at the prospects our continuing efforts in Arizona may bring."
Phase two work is expected to resume in the near future.
The technical contents of this release were approved by Dr. Tom McCandless, Technical Advisor to Geo Minerals and qualified person as defined by National Instrument 43-101.
For further information we invite you to visit us at www.geominerals.ca.
Geo Minerals is a junior exploration company actively seeking mineral and energy opportunities for the benefit of all our stakeholders.
Bronco Creek Exploration, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Eurasian Minerals(TSX VENTURE:EMX), has a portfolio of 14 exploration properties in key mining districts of Arizona, Nevada, and Wyoming, nine of which are currently under joint venture, lease/option, or exploration alliance agreements. Eurasian Minerals is exploring and investing in a first class mineral property and royalty portfolio in some of the most prospective, but under-explored mineral belts of the world.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD
Michael England, President
Forward-Looking Statement:
Some of the statements in this news release contain forward-looking information that involves inherent risk and uncertainty affecting the business of Geo Minerals Inc. Actual results may differ materially from those currently anticipated in such statements.
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