News

2009 Akie and Kechika Regional Exploration Program Commences

Vancouver, B.C. – Canada Zinc Metals Corp. (TSX Venture:CZX) (“ Canada Zinc Metals ” or the “Company”) is pleased to report that the 2009 exploration program on the Akie Property and Kechika Regional tenures (collectively the” Properties”) has commenced.  This year’s exploration program, which is helicopter supported, will be staged from the Akie base camp and will consist primarily of geologic mapping, geochemical sampling and detailed prospecting, with particular emphasis on the latter.. The Properties, all owned 100% by the Company, are centered approximately 260 kilometers north-northwest of the town of Mackenzie in northeastern British Columbia.

Akie Property Program

Work will focus on three high priority soil +/- silt geochemical targets, all underlain by permissive Gunsteel shale, that have been identified as a result of previous work by the Company and others. Of these, the North Lead Anomaly, located some 2.3 km northwest of the nearest drill hole to penetrate the Cardiac Creek deposit, is considered to be the most prospective due to the presence of coarse grained, heterogeneous, mineralization encountered in a 1996 drill hole (11.60% zinc and 9.05% lead over an interval of 0.80 m) within a geologic environment identical to that at Cardiac Creek.  In addition, this mineralization is accompanied by sulphide (pyrite, sphalerite and galena) replacement of the fragments and the matrix of an underlying debris flow, quartz-carbonate alteration in footwall rocks beneath the debris flow, and widespread high lead/zinc ratios in the soil samples collected from the surrounding area, all characteristics of a typical vent complex/feeder zone associated with a SEDEX deposit. Hydrothermal centres such as these are often associated with higher grade mineralization at the transition between the vent complex and the laterally extensive bedded ore facies.

Kechika Regional Program

The Kechika regional program will focus on the Pie, Yuen Extension and Yuen claims that extend northwestward from the Akie Property for a distance of some 30 km and encompass the key geological package of Middle to Late Devonian fine grained sediments and associated carbonate rocks that host the Company’s Cardiac Creek deposit and the nearby Cirque deposits owned by Teck Resources and Korea Zinc.

The 2009 regional exploration program will have two primary components:

        I. To conduct a detailed investigation of the favourable Gunsteel stratigraphy along strike from the Cardiac Creek deposit. These rocks exhibit widespread anomalous lead-zinc soil and silt geochemistry and numerous lead-zinc-barite showings over almost  the entire extent of the three tenures, and;

       II. To evaluate the continuation to the northwest onto the Yuen tenure and southeast onto the Pie tenure of the prospective package of Gunsteel rocks that host the two Cirque deposits. The favourable strike length covers a total distance of 15 kilometres.

“With the commencement of our 2009 exploration program, we anticipate field work leading to even better and more refined understanding of the geologic setting and to a more concentrated focus that will result in a drill program on new targets. Given our successful first phase of regional exploration last year in combination with historical work, I am certain new discoveries can be made in the months to come,” commented Jim Mustard, President of Canada Zinc Metals. ”Although there is continued uncertainty in the capital markets, we are pleased that the Board of Directors has approved an exploration budget this year of approximately $1.5 million.  The work that we will be conducting at the Akie property, including further environmental baseline studies, will continue to advance the project towards a potential underground program next year.”

About the Akie and Kechika Regional Properties

The Akie zinc-lead property is situated within the southern-most part (Kechika Trough) of the regionally extensive Paleozoic Selwyn Basin, one of the most prolific sedimentary basins in the world for the occurrence of SEDEX zinc-lead-silver and stratiform barite deposits.

Drilling on the Akie property by Inmet Mining Corporation during the period 1994 to 1996 and by Canada Zinc Metals since 2005 has identified a significant body of baritic-zinc-lead SEDEX mineralization (Cardiac Creek deposit).  The deposit is hosted by variably siliceous, fine grained clastic rocks of the Middle to Late Devonian ‘Gunsteel’ formation.  The Company has outlined a NI 43-101 compliant inferred resource of 23.6 million tonnes grading 7.6% Zn, 1.5% Pb and 13.0 g/t Ag (at a 5% Zn cut off grade). 

Two similar deposits, Cirque and Cirque South Cirque, located some 20 km northwest of Akie and owned under a joint venture by Teck Resources and Korea Zinc, are also hosted by Gunsteel rocks and have a combined geologic inventory in excess of 50 million tonnes (non 43-101 compliant).

In addition to the Akie property, Canada Zinc Metals controls a large contiguous group of claims called Kechika Regional hosting identical geology as occurs at Cirque and Akie. Kechika Regional includes Mt Alcock (best historic drill intercept 8.8 metres grading 9.3% Zn+Pb) and several regional base metal anomalies.

Qualified Person

John R. Fraser, P.Geo. (B.C.), Vice President of Exploration and a Director of Canada Zinc Metals is the Qualified Person for the Company, as defined by NI 43-101, and is responsible for the technical information contained in this release.

The TSX Venture Exchange has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release.

ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS

CANADA ZINC METALS CORP.

“PEEYUSH VARSHNEY”
                                                           

PEEYUSH VARSHNEY, LL.B
CEO & CHAIRMAN