News

Canada Zinc Metals Receives 3-Year Drill Permits for the Kechika Project

Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada – Thursday, August 4, 2011 – Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture Exchange: CZX) is pleased to announce it has received 3-Year drill permits from the BC government for the Pie and Mt. Alcock properties, two of ten mineral exploration properties that form one large contiguous group of properties known as the Kechika property.

The Kechika property extends over 140 kilometers along the known strike extent of the highly prospective Gunsteel Formation (Earn Group), a sequence of Upper Devonian carbonaceous black shales that are host to the Cardiac Creek, Cirque and Driftpile Creek SEDEX deposits of the Kechika Trough.

The Pie adjoins CZX’s Akie property on its northern boundary. The Mt. Alcock property is located approximately 45 kilometers North West of the Akie property. The Akie property is located approximately 260 kilometers north-northwest of the town of Mackenzie, in northeastern British Columbia, Canada. Please refer to the July 18^th news release for a recent update on exploration drilling on the Akie property.

The Pie and Mt. Alcock drill permits are valid for a period of three years and will allow helicopter-supported diamond drilling on a number of targets that have been identified through extensive historical compilation and recent field work. Geological crews are presently mapping and sampling locations on the Pie property where work has identified exhalative nodular barite which suggests the West Pie area may be underlain with previously unidentified panel of Gunsteel shale. Additional mapping and sampling work is planned for the Mt. Alcock property in August.

The systematic exploration work will build on previous work completed by historical operators and by CZX in 2009. The work will aim to increase discovery potential while adding value to both properties. The program will include mapping, silt, soil, and rock chip sampling, and hand trenching to refine targeting for the first phase of drilling on each property.

“The permitted drilling program is an important step in unlocking the potential for the Pie and Mt. Alcock properties. We know from previous drilling campaigns on both properties that SEDEX style mineralization similar to the Cardiac Creek and Cirque deposits has been encountered, and we can now apply the geological knowledge gained from intensive exploration at Akie to these properties”, states CEO Peeyush Varshney.  

The Pie Property:

The Pie area is underlain by a platformal sequence of grey limestone and carbonate debris-flow breccia of the Middle Devonian Kwadacha Limestone of the Paul River Formation overlain by basinal black graphitic shales of the Upper Devonian Gunsteel Formation (Earn Group). The Gunsteel shales contain beds of nodular barite and associated galena and sphalerite. The matrix of the underlying debris flow limestone breccias is host to chalcopyrite and pyrite. Exploration experience at Cirque and Driftpile Creek indicate that Devonian SEDEX deposits of ore grade and size have a weakly mineralized baritic halo that extends for distances up to one or two kilometers.

Historical work on the Pie property involved geochemical sampling, geological mapping and geophysical surveys, with widely-spaced, follow-up diamond drilling carried out on the Pie claims in 1980 and 1982 by Riocanex. The 1980 drill program consisted of six holes designed to test for the bedrock source of barite-galena float and associated high lead and zinc geochemistry. The drilling failed to determine the origin of the mineralized float and anomalous soil geochemistry but did encounter pyritic shale and nodular and bedded barite.

A 3-hole program was designed to test bedded barite occurrences in the southern part of the property over wide intervals of up to 2 kilometers apart to determine if they were mineralized at depth. Baritic shales at two separate stratigraphic intervals were intersected in three locations with variable barite content and thickness. Thick overburden precluded hand trenching.

Follow-up exploration in 2006 by Ecstall Mining Corporation included 14 drill holes. SEDEX barite and pyrite horizons were encountered in several holes that reached target depth but sampling was restricted to narrow intervals from only a few holes that displayed well-developed laminated barite and pyrite horizons. The selective sampling was restricted to notable exhalative barite and/or pyrite laminae that are similar to the proximal pyrite zone observed in the hangingwall of the Cardiac Creek deposit. Drill hole P-06-7 intersected a total of 243 meters of pyritic shale, with over 200 individual zones of interlaminated exhalative pyrite and nodular barite. The analytical results identified elevated geochemical values for zinc (up to 8053 ppm), lead (up to 861 ppm) and silver (up to 15.1 ppm) in samples from hole P-06-7 which suggest proximity to a SEDEX vent source.

The Mt. Alcock Property:

The Mt. Alcock area is underlain by a fault-bounded wedge of Devonian to Mississippian Earn Group shales surrounded by Ordovician to Devonian Road River Group siltstones.

Historical work by Triumph Resources in 1989 included geochemical, geophysical surveys and diamond drilling. The geochemical survey defined a zinc-lead soil anomaly over a length of 2.4 kilometers and a width of 300 meters. Zinc values in soils ranged from 500 to 10,000 ppm with coincident lead values that ranged from 100 to 30,000 ppm. Stratiform barite hosted zinc-lead sulphides were identified in outcrop within the central part of the anomaly along a 300 meter strike length. Grab samples returned 14 percent combined zinc and lead and 1.0 ounce /ton silver.

A large curvilinear body of barite, containing bands of pyrite, galena and sphalerite, forms a prominent white-kill zone in a saddle on the north side of Mount Alcock, and is exposed over a distance of 230 metre long and a width of 20 metres. The barite is hosted within Upper Devonian Gunsteel Formation shales.

Diamond drilling in 1989 totaled 1,111.6 meters in 9 holes on 5 sections. Drill hole 89-3 intersected 8.8 meters of 9.30% combined zinc-lead and 1.20 oz./ton silver in massive sulphide mineralization overlying the barite facies. Drill hole 83-6 intersected barite-hosted mineralization that returned 4.72% combined zinc-lead and 0.79 oz./ton silver over 7.3 metres. Drill hole 83-9 tested 120 m down-dip of surface and intersected 6.8% zinc-lead and 0.70 oz./ton silver over 10.5 metres. The mineralization consists of barite facies with laminae of galena and sphalerite.

The 1989 drill program was successful in tracing the Mt. Alcock barite-zinc-lead horizon over a strike length of 230 meters and to a depth of 130 meters, with significant drill hole intersections similar to certain sections at the Cardiac Creek deposit. As is known from deposit studies within the district, barite is generally peripheral to base metal massive sulphides and, accordingly, zinc-lead values obtained from the barite zone are considered indicative of a proximal massive sulphide body.

Triumph Resources, with funding provided by Teck Corporation, planned a 1,500 meter drill program for 1990 to follow up on very encouraging 1989 drill results.  Several drill collars have been found in the field to indicate this work was completed in 1990 but there is no public assessment report recorded to identify the results.

The Akie Property:

The Akie zinc-lead property is situated within the southern-most part (Kechika Trough) of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.

Drilling on the Akie property by Inmet Mining Corporation during the period 1994 to 1996 and by Canada Zinc Metals since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead SEDEX mineralization (Cardiac Creek deposit).  The deposit is hosted by siliceous, carbonaceous, fine grained clastic rocks of the Middle to Late Devonian ‘Gunsteel’ formation.  The Company has outlined a NI 43-101 compliant inferred resource of 23.6 million tonnes grading 7.6% zinc, 1.5% lead and 13.0 g/t silver (at a 5% zinc cut off grade). 

Two similar deposits, Cirque and Cirque South Cirque, located some 20 km northwest of Akie and owned under a joint venture by Teck Resources and Korea Zinc, are also hosted by Gunsteel rocks and have a combined geologic inventory in excess of 50 million tonnes (not 43-101 compliant) grading  approximately 10% combined zinc + lead.

In addition to the Akie property, Canada Zinc Metals Corp. controls a large contiguous group of claims which comprise the Kechika Regional project. These claims are underlain by geology identical to that on the Akie property (Cardiac Creek deposit) and Cirque. This project includes the  100% owned Mt. Alcock property, which has yielded a historic drill intercept of 8.8 metres grading 9.3% zinc+lead, numerous zinc-lead-barite occurrences,  and several regional base metal anomalies.

Ken MacDonald P.Geo., Vice President of Exploration, is the designated Qualified Person as defined by National Instrument 43-101 and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.

The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

CANADA ZINC METALS CORP.

“PEEYUSH VARSHNEY”

PEEYUSH VARSHNEY, LL.B
CEO & CHAIRMAN