Cyclone Metals Limited announced that trial geochemical sampling has successfully identified gold anomalies at Mareburn and Macraes South, located 40km north of Dunedin in the Otago Province of New Zealand. Cyclone trialled the Ionic LeachTM technique over several lines and has proven to be effectiveness. Highlights: Strong geochemical responses over projected structural positions of gold lode zones at Macraes South and Mareburn gold projects; Good correlation with previous limited historical soil sampling and positive rock chip sampling, indicating the technique is applicable in New Zealand conditions; Anomalous responses up to 350m wide at Macraes South in sampling line 4; Clear strong anomalous response over major fault cross-cutting the Macraes mineralised system validating the company's geological model, that these structures potentially are mineralised.

Ionic is a proprietary (ALS Global Laboratories) surface geochemical technique designed to detect metal ion anomalism through transported cover. The Ionic technique was chosen over MMI due to the lower detection limits for most elements and the quicker turnaround of results. Ionic LeachTM is an innovative analytical process that uses a unique approach to the analysis of metals in soils and related materials.

Target elements are extracted using weak solutions which detach and hold metal ions that were loosely bound to soil particles by weak atomic forces in aqueous solution. This extraction does not dissolve the bound forms of the metal ions. Thus, the metal ions in the solutions are the chemically active or `mobile' component of the sample.

Because these mobile, loosely bound complexes are in very low concentrations, measurement is by conventional ICP-MS. This allows to report very low detection limits. These techniques have the following advantages: Few false anomalies; Focused, sharp anomalies; Excellent repeatability; Definition of metal zones and associations; Detection of deeply buried mineralisation; Low background values (low noise); Low limits of detection. The Ionic technique provides analysis of 61 elements covering base metals, pathfinder elements, major elements and rare earths.

This allows the generation of exploration Indices which are a combination of multiple elements to be used to generate target areas showing similarity to known deposits. The datais usually viewed after ratioing the analytical value to the calculated background: known as the Response Ratio - RR; this is especially useful when dealing with variable regolith with the project area.