VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Sept. 3, 2002 (PRIMEZONE) -- Snowfield Development Corp. (Snowfield) (TSX Venture Exchange:SNO) is pleased to announce that it has executed a Letter of Intent Agreement with Mr. David Smith of Yellowknife, N.W.T. whereby Snowfield can earn an 80% interest in the Drybones #4 & #5; Beck #1, #3, #4, & #6; Habanero; Faya and Pyrope Mineral Claims ("New Claim Area") located in the South Mining District of the Northwest Territories approximately 50 kilometers south-east of Yellowknife. This "New Claim Area" is contiguous to the east of the Drybones Bay diamondiferous kimberlite pipe optioned from David Smith by New Shoshoni Ventures Ltd. This latest acquisition brings Snowfields total land position in the Drybones area to approximately 22,000 acres (see Map 1)
Snowfield will earn its 80% interest by making cumulative cash payments totaling $400,000 to Mr. Smith over a 31-month period; issuing a cumulative total of 2,400,000 shares from treasury to Mr. Smith over a 39 month period; and expending a cumulative total of $2,000,000 on four programs of exploration and development on the property to be completed by October 31, 2005. A final Option Agreement will be executed on or before September 15, 2002
A portion of the "New Claim Area" of particular interest to Snowfield is known as the Mud Lake area and is located about 4 kms southeast of the Drybones pipe. Extensive exploration work undertaken by David Smith at Mud-Lake over the past several years includes a series of kimberlite indicator mineral sampling programs. These were carried out both down ice and up ice from the central Mud-Lake area. These till sampling programs produced numerous indicator minerals, which revealed a number of distinct mineral trains. Ice direction appears to be to the southwest. Up ice data shows no continuation of these mineral trains to the northeast. It would therefore appear that the source of these indicator minerals is located within the central Mud-Lake area. Following this sampling work three holes were drilled in the area earlier this year by David Smith. These holes failed to intersect kimberlite Details concerning the most recent sampling program were published by the Geological Survey of Canada ("Chemical characteristics of kimberlite indicator minerals from the Drybones Bay area (NTS 85I/4), Northwest Territories"; D.E.Kerr, I.M.Kjarsgaard and, D.Smith - 2000, GSC Open File D3942). This report contains a comprehensive description of the sample collection and processing procedures. Electron micro-probe results for the picked indicator minerals are also described in this report. Some 1700 indicator mineral grains were analyzed.
The majority of these mineral grains identified appear to be ilmenites, however 504 of these grains were identified as mantle derived Cr-pyropes, 6% of these Cr-pyropes appear to be G10 garnets. These garnet results are shown on the attached Graph 1. Comments from the report include the following:
"A number of Cr-rich and CaO-poor pyrope garnets point to the existence of potentially diamondiferous depleted harzburgite or dunite in the mantle assemblages sampled by the kimberlite(s)."
Some 31 chromite grains were also identified and these were all classified as typical kimberlitic chromites. The conclusion of this report is as follows:
"The relatively large number of indicator minerals recovered in the Mud-Lake till samples is indicative of close proximity to their kimberlitic source, in view of the regional background of zero (0) grains. Ice flow patterns suggest a source likely a short distance up-ice (east/northeast) of these samples because indicator grains originating from the kimberlite(s) would be transported southwestward in till."
The entire "New Claim Area" has previously been covered by an airborne magnetic survey using a line spacing of between 100 and 200 meters. A number of ground geophysical surveys have also been carried out at Mud-Lake by David Smith. These include both magnetics and max-min electromagnetic (EM) surveys. The company's geophysicist is currently interpreting this ground data.
In order to facilitate the identification of the source of the aforementioned indicator mineral trains, upon executing the Letter of Intent, Snowfield immediately re-flew portions of the New Claim Area, including the Hurcomb Claim (see NR 02-19, August 26, 2002), which is, located approximately 5 kms east of Mud-Lake. This helicopter airborne survey was flown using a line spacing of 50 meters over the Mud-Lake area and 75 meters over the Hurcomb portion of the property. This airborne survey utilized Meridian Geoscience's Hummingbird EM/Magnetic survey system. The system is a multi-frequency in-phase and quadrature EM system utilizing three coplanar and two coaxial coils. The coplanar frequencies are 980, 6600 and 34000 Hz. The coaxial frequencies are 880 and 7000 Hz respectively. Processed data from this airborne survey is expected shortly.
ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD "Robert T. Paterson" Robert T. Paterson President Snowfield Development Corp.
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This release in its entirety, including Map 1 and Chart 1, is available at the following link: http://www.primezone.com/media/temp_nr/snowfield_090302.pdf