Southern Arc completes porphyry prospectivity study

Southern Arc Minerals said it had completed a prospectivity study for porphyry exploration targets on its West Lombok project, identifying 17 new porphyry exploration targets throughout the property.

The company said on Friday that it had commenced drill testing and would continue evaluating these targets with detailed ground work.

Based on previous drilling it had conducted, it considered the West Lombok property to be highly prospective for mineralized porphyries. Drilling during 2007 and 2008 on the Selodong prospect in the southern part of the property returned significant porphyry-grade intersections, including 363.50m @ 0.3% copper and 0.5 g/t gold, and 102.25m @ 0.5% copper and 1.05 g/t gold.

At Selodong, relatively deeper erosion has exposed mineralized porphyries and it is inferred that at higher elevations northwest along the mineralized corridor, advanced argillic alteration zones in the Mencanggah and Pelangan prospects represent potential lithocaps to concealed porphyry systems.

Targets with moderate to high porphyry prospectivity occur in Montong Botek, Blongas, Mahoni, Belikat and Makam Kedaro in the Selodong prospect; Bising, Lendak Bare and Telekur in the Mencanggah prospect; and Batu Sendi and Lala in the Pelangan prospect.

A number of the targets have already had a limited amount of drill testing and include the Montong Botek and Blongas targets, which host zones of high-grade gold-rich porphyry copper mineralization, supporting the outcome of the prospectivity analysis.

"The prospectivity study has identified valid porphyry exploration targets on the West Lombok property based on conventional and contemporary wisdom on porphyry / lithocap models," said Dr. Mike Andrews, Chief Operating Officer of Southern Arc.

"Southern Arc has a two-pronged exploration strategy at West Lombok: to drill the more than 26-kilometer cumulative strike length of epithermal-gold mineralization identified on the property, while exploring for copper-gold porphyry systems related to the epithermal mineralization. While Southern Arc awaits receipt of its Ministry of Forestry permit, the company will prioritize the porphyry targets to the southeast and northeast of the property that are located in areas without forestry designation," he said.

The porphyry prospectivity study was completed by Dr. Steve Garwin, Southern Arc's Senior Technical Advisor, with the objective of recommending new porphyry copper-gold exploration targets within the West Lombok property.

The study followed 3D inversion modeling of results from a high-definition airborne magnetic and radiometric survey completed in September 2011. The primary objectives of the study were to: review and interpret the results of the ongoing regional geological mapping program; integrate geology and geochemical results with the results of the recently completed airborne magnetics/radiometric survey; and undertake a prospectivity analysis to generate porphyry exploration targets.

Editing by Benget Besalicto Tnb.