The Konya Project is located in the Erenler Dağı (Erenler Mountains), 245 km south of Ankara and 35 km west-south-west of the city of Konya. The Erenler Daği, also known as the Konya Volcanic Belt, comprises a sequence of volcanic and intrusive rocks extending over an area of 60 km x 40 km and hosts Stratex’s Inlice and Doğanbey projects. Stratex has a total of 31 licences covering an area of 37,480 hectares over the volcanic belt. In addition to Inlice and Doğanbey, the Company, together with partner Teck Cominco Arama ve Madencilik San.Tic.A.S. (TCAM), have generated a number of targets within the wider belt, which have been confirmed to host porphyry-style mineralization.

Independent Consultant Richard Sillitoe has compared the Miocene-age (4-10 Ma) Konya Belt to the Maricunga district in Chile, which had no known gold mineralization prior to 1980 but as a result of subsequent exploration is now known to host reserves and resources in excess of 40 million oz gold.

Regional Geology

The Konya Volcanic Belt is positioned geographically and geologically between the Tauride and Anatolide units, and was erupted in response to the northward subduction of the African Plate beneath Anatolia along the Cyprean Arc from Jurassic to Miocene times (208-5.33 Ma).

Eruption of the Konya volcanics was controlled by extensional faulting along the major arc-parallel Aksehir Fault. Half-graben faulting, observed north-east and south-east of Inlice, is thought to be related to the Aksehir Fault and is the bounding feature to the Konya volcanics. The Ana mineralized zone at Inlice and other property lineaments are sub-parallel to the Aksehir Fault.

The Konya volcanic rocks are mainly andesites and dacites, belonging to the high-K calc-alkaline series. Significantly, the calc-alkaline to high-K calc-alkaline series rocks and many of their chemical and isotopic characteristics are very similar to the young volcanic rocks of the Central Andes that are host to major gold, silver and base metal epithermal deposits.

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Exploration Potential

Ongoing exploration includes stream sediment geochemistry, soil geochemistry, mapping, and outcrop sampling. Stratex are evaluating a number of potential targets using these techniques, in combination with Aster imagery and the results of an airborne magnetic survey. The current areas of priority are identified on the accompanying illustration. The exploration programme has already defined four new porphyry-style targets - Karacaören, Doğanbey South, Gölcük, and Közlu. Following Doğanbey, the discovery of these zones of porphyry-style gold mineralization provides strong incentivisation in the Company's search for a major discovery in the Belt. Initial RC drilling at Karacaören, Doğanbey South, and Gölcük has confirmed that all three systems are gold-bearing porphyries. Results of drilling to date are as follows:

Table 1: RC drill intersections from Konya

Hole	Dip	Depth  (m)	Intersection
			From (m)	Width (m)	Au (g/t)
DoÄŸanbey South
DOSRC-01	-060°	155.00	134.00	155.00	0.17
Gölcük
GOLRC-01	-060°	252.00	No significant intersection >0.1
GOLRC-02	-060°	124.00	No significant intersection >0.1
Karacaören
KAORC-01	-060°	179.00	No significant intersection >0.1
KAORC-02	-060°	130.00	4.00 4.00	34.00 102.00	0.17 0.11
KAORC-03	-060°	205.00	0.00 104.00	170.00 66.00	0.12 0.18
KAORC-04	-060°	221.00	82.00 182.00	70.00 39.00	0.27 0.12

 

The true widths of the intersected mineralisation are not known. However, given the generally homogeneous nature of porphyry bodies, the quoted values are likely to be indicative of a substantial mass of mineralised rock.

A fourth porphyry system has been inferred at the Kozlu prospect, 3 km south-east of Karacaören, following the discovery of an intrusive breccia carrying porphyry fragments cut by porphyry-type veinlets and anomalous in gold - up to 39 ppb Au, with 129 ppb Au recorded in the altered wallrocks.

Stratex is now reviewing all data with a view to further drilling at Konya. Ongoing evaluation of field data by Stratex geologists has also highlighted a new zone, Oğlakçı, in the south-central part of the Konya Volcanic Belt, that is characterized by anomalous gold values (to 45 ppb Au) and associated elements in soils within a substantial zone of intense hydrothermal alteration ('lithocap'). This target zone is also underlain by a prominent magnetic-high elliptical anomaly extending 1.5 km east-west that may well relate to a near-surface porphyry system.