Willow Creek and Iconic Minerals Form Joint Venture on Hercules Gold & Silver Property, Nevada

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 21, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Willow Creek Enterprises Inc. (OTCBB: WLOC) (the "Company" or "Willow Creek") announced today that it has granted Iconic Minerals Ltd (TSX-V: ICM) (FSE: YQG) ("Iconic") the exclusive right and option to acquire up to a 70% interest in the on its Hercules Gold & Silver Property located in the Walker Lane Mineral Belt in southern Lyon County, Nevada, USA.

The joint venture allows the sequential acquisition by Iconic of a 70% interest in consideration for Iconic expending a total of US$3 million in staged expenditures on the property over a five year period. Iconic may acquire an additional 5% interest for a total 75% interest by producing a Bankable Feasibility Study on the property.

The Hercules Project is located in the Como Mining District, Lyon County, Nevada, approximately 15 kilometers east of the Comstock Mine.  The Hercules Project is a high level epithermal vein and disseminated gold/silver prospect occurring within Tertiary volcanic rocks.  Willow Creek and Iconic believe the Project has the potential for bulk minable heap leachable gold-silver mineralization. Two sub-parallel structural zones approximately 750 meters apart can be traced along surface for over 2,600 meters. The Project has at least 240 shallow historic drill holes, mostly within the Northeast Target. Drilling was conducted by several exploration companies - most recently by Willow Creek.  This work identified four gold-silver targets within the Project boundary (as noted in the table below: Hercules, Northeast, West Cliffs and Loaves). Both Partners believe additional drilling between targets may define continuous mineralization.

The 2011 Willow Creek drilling program included 20 holes to an average depth of 94 meters.  Two of the 20 holes were terminated early due to caving, and did not reach the altered horizon.  A total of 1,880 meters of drilling were completed on four targets.  This drill program was designed to infill areas of historic wide-spaced drilling within and immediately adjacent to drill-inferred resource blocks.  Results of the 2011 drill program intersected both thicker intervals of low grade gold (<1.5 g/t), and higher grades within discrete quartz veins than were previously reported.  The results of this drilling are summarized in Table 1 below.

TABLE 1 – Summary of 2011 drilling

True thickness averages 0.85 of the above intervals.  

The above results are based on sampling of reverse circulation drilling, where samples were collected on 1.5 meter intervals.  Blanks and standards were inserted and the samples shipped to ALS Chemex in Reno, Nevada, where they were assayed using standard techniques.  Repeat assaying of all +0.8 g/t gold and +40 g/t silver results were then conducted.  ALS Chemex's internal procedure also includes blanks and standards.

Drill logs indicate oxidized mineralization occurs to depths of 40 to 95 meters below surface.  Each of the targets drilled is open along strike and down dip.  Future drilling will focus on the large gaps between targets as well as extending mineralization down dip.

Historic bottle roll performed by Kappes, Cassidy and Associates in 1985 and Bondar-Clegg in 1988 indicate good recoveries.  Average recoveries from bottle roll tests of surface panel samples were 88% for gold and 77% for silver.  Bottle roll tests were also conducted on individual five foot intervals of historic drill holes.  The depths of samples ranged from surface to a depth of 47.2 meters.  Average recoveries from these tests resulted in a cumulative 81% of the gold and 70% of the silver.  Further metallurgical testing will be conducted on drill cuttings collected during the 2011 drill program.  Sulfide mineralization will also be tested for leachability where it was encountered during the 2011 drilling.  

Technical information in this release has been reviewed and approved by Mr. Paul Noland, P. Geo., and a Qualified Person as defined by NI43-101, unless otherwise noted.

About Hercules Gold & Silver Property:

The Hercules project currently consists of 88 mining claims for a total of 1760 acres, which is located in the prestigious Walker Lane Mineral Belt in southern Lyon County, Nevada, USA. The Property hosts an indicated resource of approximately 583,000 gold-equivalent ounces. Hercules is located approximately 25 miles southwest of Reno, 7 miles outside of Dayton, 10 miles from the Comstock Lode Deposit and 15 miles from the Talapoosa Mine.

The historic Walker Lane Mineral Belt in western Nevada is a highly mineralized trend that contains several world-class epithermal precious metals deposits such as:
*the Comstock Lode (estimated production of 8.6 million ounces of gold and 192 million ounces of silver);
*Round Mountain (Barrick / Kinross) (over 10 million ounces of gold produced since 1906); and
*Rawhide, Aurora, Goldfield mines.
Additional porphyry copper deposits are at Yerington (1.75 billion pounds of copper produced from 1953-1978 by Anaconda Copper Company.)

About Willow Creek Enterprises Inc.

Willow Creek is a gold, silver and base metal exploration company with the purpose of evaluating, developing and acquiring gold projects of merit with a focus on the United States, Canada and Mexico. At present, Willow Creek is focused on the exploration and development of its projects in Nevada, USA. Willow Creek has also compiled a management team that has the knowledge, experience and motivation to find quality properties at different stages of development in order to fulfill their corporate mission.

Terry Fields, President

Contact information:

[email protected]

Please visit the Willow Creek website www.willowcreekenterprisesinc.com for any further information

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SOURCE Willow Creek Enterprises Inc.