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The Shotgun property is located 175 kilometres south of Donlin Creek within the Kuskokwim Gold Belt in Southwestern Alaska, an area emerging as a world-class gold district hosting more than 40 million ounces of aggregated gold resources. The Shotgun property includes a number of prospects, including Shotgun Ridge and nearby Winchester. Donlin is an intrusion-associated system and represents one of the largest undeveloped gold deposits in the world. (See NovaGold.net.) The Company believes that there are several key similarities between prospects in the Shotgun area and that of the Donlin Creek gold deposit as well as other intrusion-associated deposits.
Previous work at Shotgun Ridge by joint-venture partner NovaGold Resources Inc. has a estimated historical resource of 980,000 ounces grading 0.93 gram per tonne (g/t) at a cut-off of 0.5 g/t (National Instrument 43-101non-compliant resources).The geology and style of mineralization at Shotgun is very similar to the Dome area of the Donlin deposit.
The focus of TNR's 2006 program was the project's Winchester Zone, and in July 2006 it was announced that hole 06-45 had intersected 24 meters of 1.9 g/t gold. Winchester is a recently discovered, intrusion-associated gold prospect, approximately 16 km south of TNR's Shotgun Ridge prospect. Winchester has been explored by TNR since 2003 and has gold geochemical anomalies spanning more than 7 km. Focused exploration during 2004-5 identified an area along the ridge with 1.4 km surface trace that has anomalous gold in talus and soils. Drilling during the summer of 2005 identified a bedrock source for some of this gold.
Drilling during 2005 and 2006 identified gold-bearing sills in the eastern end of the ridge at Winchester. Unexplained gold anomalies are known to exist along the ridge to its western extreme six kilometres from previous drilling.
A total of seven holes now complete a section through the ridge at Winchester, providing TNR with significantly clearer picture of the geology, structure and mineralization than was previously available. Gold mineralization continues to be most closely associated with light grey, equigranular, fine to medium grained felsic intrusive sills and is not restricted to brecciated zones or veins. The light grey intrusive grades into other phases including a porphyry, where it continues to carry significant gold for tens of meters. TNR believes it has tested less than half the sills that are currently known to exist at Winchester. A major structural axis identified through drilling and surface mapping may focus mineralization and runs parallel to the ridge at Winchester.
In July 2007 the Company mobilized an exploration crew to its Shotgun Hills property. Geologists will be identifying new drill targets for the 2008 season. Mapping and sampling will focus on identifying drill targets that could extend the Winchester gold zone to the west.
Since 2003, TNR has followed a strategy on the Shotgun Project aimed at identifying a new zone in addition to Shotgun Ridge. All known prospects in the area were systematically examined and focus was drawn to the most promising targets. The success at Winchester is due to the execution of this strategy.
TNR has earned a 50% interest from NovaGold in the Shotgun project and has a further option to earn an additional 20% interest in the Shotgun project.
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