South Africa police standoff with illegal gold miners escalates
The police sealed off access to the Buffelsfontein gold mine in Stilfontein several weeks ago to deny the miners access to food and other essentials.
Midas Gold Corp. (MAX: TSX) today reported that the 2011 exploration program at its Golden Meadows Project, Valley County, Idaho, has commenced. The work planned by Midas Gold aims to further evaluate the mineral potential of the consolidated Golden Meadows property, unconstrained by historic property boundaries that impeded prior explorers in the area. The 2011 exploration program will use a combination of exploration methods, including airborne and ground geophysics and drilling. The program has four key objectives:
All permits for the 2011 exploration program are in hand and, to date, a total of five core and four reverse circulation (“RC”) holes have already been completed on patented land owned by Midas. The flying of the airborne geophysical survey is also complete, results of which are pending.
In addition to its exploration program, Midas Gold plans to audit the existing environmental database and collect and supplement that extensive collection of scientific information with additional environmental baseline data that will facilitate future programs. Priority baseline studies requiring additional studies or data will be initiated in 2011 and the Company will continue to monitor the local environmental conditions. This information will also assist Midas Gold in developing effective mitigation strategies and best management practices to meet all applicable state and federal environmental standards related to its work. Midas Gold is also planning to undertake certain voluntary remediation and monitoring activities in cooperation with regulatory agencies, including water quality and stream flow measurements.
“Midas Gold’s 2011 exploration at the Golden Meadows Project will, for the first time, begin the evaluation of the potential of this important gold district unconstrained by historic property boundaries,” commented Stephen Quin, President & CEO of Midas Gold Corp. “All three known gold deposits at Golden Meadows are open to expansion along strike and to depth and there is excellent potential to discover entirely new deposits, based on information contained within an extensive exploration database collected and collated by Midas Gold. The 2011 exploration program aims to increase the confidence level of the known mineral resources, to expand the known deposits and to test for potential new deposits, while working to improve the local environmental conditions and our understanding thereof.”
