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Field Work on the Regalo Property Resumes Detailed Map of South Yastekt Gold Anomaly Area Released
Vancouver, British Columbia, February 10th, 2005 -- Mr. Guilford Brett, President, Consolidated Pacific Bay Minerals Ltd. (TSX Venture: CBP, the "Company") is pleased to announce the continuation of the summer's field exploration program on the Regalo claims in Patagonia, Argentina to follow up very strong gold anomalies in soil samples over a large area discovered earlier in the season in the South Yastekt Zone. Pacific Bay Minerals is exploring the Regalo claim under an option agreement with IMA Exploration Inc. which is developing the large, Navidad silver-lead discovery 70 kilometers to the north.
A new map showing details of the South Yastekt Zone gold results has been posted on the company's website (http://www.pacificbayminerals.com/regalo.shtml). In this area the strong gold anomalies are consistent over almost one square kilometre. The Yastekt South anomaly comprises 98 soil analyses that average 299 parts per billion gold. Normal, background gold values in the area are less than 5 parts per billion. If the high value of over 3 grams per tonne gold is removed from total, the average across the approximately one kilometre square zone is 236 parts per billion gold, which is considered to be very anomalous. Significantly, the highly anomalous gold values are not isolated occurrences, but rather appear in long strings over hundreds of meters along contiguous lines within each of the soil grids, over terrain with no outcropping rock exposures.
Smaller, more focused soil anomaly areas have been outlined in the other prospect areas on the Regalo claims, the Discovery Zone, the Jasperoid Zone, and the Yastekt - West Valley Zone, and while each area appears to have a somewhat different geological character, each returned substantial areas of strong gold soil anomalies, i.e. 100 ppb Au or above (see website for locations of the four main gold anomaly zones on the Regalo property).
The Regalo property is underlain by Upper Jurassic to Upper Cretaceous calcareous siltstones, limestones and volcaniclastic rocks juxtaposed against one another along a NW trending regional fault. Units of both ages host abundant replacements of favourable stratigraphic horizons by chalcedonic and jasperoidal silica due to hydrothermal alteration. Outcrops in the strong gold anomaly areas are limited. Where outcrops do occur they are highly resistant silicified rocks.
Pacific Bay Minerals, through its local subsidiary, is filing a recently completed environmental impact study on the Regalo claims with the Chubut province Direction of Mines, and approval of this report is expected in a timely fashion. Dr. Richard Culbert, the Company's Senior Consulting Geologist and Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101, has recommended, based on the surprisingly strong gold results, that a further phase of surface work be started immediately to further the development of trenching and drilling targets and to further the understanding of the nature of the gold source. The geochemical exploration of the Regalo property has shown that the area has excellent potential for the discovery of a sediment hosted epithermal gold deposit.
South Yastekt Zone - Gold in Silt and Soil Samples
On Behalf Of The Board Of Directors
Guilford H. Brett
President
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