VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA--St. Jude Resources Ltd. (SJD-TSX.V) is pleased to announce that it has been granted the Shieni Hills gold concession by the Government of Ghana. This 500 sq. km. Reconnaissance License has a unique geological setting that has the potential to host in situ hard rock gold. The property is centred on the Shieni Hills iron ore deposits in north eastern Ghana. These deposits were discovered in the 1930's and were studied in some detail by a Russian geological team in the 1960's. The host rock is late Proterozoic clastic sediments of the Buem Formation in the Voltaian basin which are iron enriched in a belt approximately 50 km. in length. The company is testing the theory that the iron is hosted in hydrothermal breccias. This source makes the Shieni Hills an IOCG candidate (iron ore, copper, gold), and the geological setting is similar to the Adelaide Basin/Olympic Dam IOCG deposit.
The iron ores are very substantial in size (100's of millions of tonnes) but their relatively low grade and remote location makes them an unlikely economic iron deposit. The most likely accessory mineral is gold which may have originated in underlying Birimian basement which was later remobilized during a Late Proterozoic hydrothermal event associated with the Buem Formation volcanism. The Shieni Hills appear to overlay the strike extension of the Ashanti gold belt.
St. Jude has established a base camp in Zabzugu and is initiating an extensive stream sediment and geochemical sampling program. Analysis of these samples will be carried out in both Canada and in Ghana. Early explorers in the Shieni Hills area noted that stream sediment heavy mineral sampling revealed fine specks of gold in a significant number of samples, however, no systematic gold analysis was carried out at that time.
St. Jude is a leading West African explorer focused on the discovery and development of gold deposits amenable to low cost mining. The company's projects in Ghana and Burkina Faso now cover over 1,071 sq. km. (264,000 acres) of one of the richest and most productive gold bearing regions in the world. With a well stocked treasury, expanding gold resources, new discoveries and several advanced exploration targets, St. Jude is well positioned to continue its strong growth.
