Mantra Mining Inc. reported several major developments recently, including plans to spin off properties with significant zinc mineralization, changing its name and completion of planned 2009 work programs on its exploration properties in Alaska.

The Vancouver, B.C.-based junior said it would hold a special meeting Sept. 25 to seek approval from shareholders to pass a special resolution that will spin out the properties in a company called AsiaBaseMetals Inc. The transaction would involve each existing Mantra shareholder receiving an equivalent number of shares of AsiaBaseMetals Inc. In August, Mantra transferred its Gnome zinc property in British Columbia along with some working capital to AsiaBaseMetals in exchange for about 86.15 million AsiaBaseMetals shares, which was equal to the number of Mantra shares outstanding on that date on a fully-diluted basis.

AsiaBaseMetals will be listed as a separately traded company on the TSX Venture exchange.

New name

Mantra also said its directors approved changing the name of the company to TintinaGold Resources Inc., effective Sept. 28. Under the company's articles of incorporation, the company's name may be changed by a resolution of the directors.

Mantra said it also expected its stock symbol to change concurrently with the impending name change.

"The name TintinaGold better reflects the company's focus on the Tintina Gold Belt, one of the more prolific and under-explored gold belts in the world," said Mantra Executive Chairman Rick Van Nieuwenhuyse said Sept. 17. "With such world-class assets as Donlin Creek, which has a 30 million-ounce gold reserve owned by NovaGold and Barrick, and the Fort Knox Mine, a 400,000-ounce-a-year annual producer owned by Kinross Gold Corp., and a host of recent new and exciting discoveries such as Livengood in Alaska and White Gold in the Yukon, we believe this is one of the hottest exploration venues in the world."

Drilling at Colorado Creek

Mantra said its first drilling program at its Colorado Creek gold property in Southwest Alaska was the highlight of the junior's US$1.6 million exploration program. The 12 holes covering 2,547 meters was designed to test the potential for a major gold mineralized system from a multi-kilometer-long area of elevated gold in soil and rock samples.

Hole DDH09-014 intersected 111 meters with an average grade of 0.64 grams per metric ton gold, and includes 24 meters averaging 1.15 g/t gold and 2.3 meters averaging 7.28 g/t gold.

Jerry Zieg, Mantra's vice president of exploration, told Mining News that results of the first three drill holes at Colorado Creek showed widespread gold mineralization in the sill, which is more than 100 meters thick.

"The results helped us understand mineralization controls within it and around it," Zieg said. "The drilling hasn't closed off the mineralization but rather given us more confidence in our view that this is a very large gold system, and we'll need more work to vector into the best part of it. We've also encountered a different higher temperature style of sulfide mineralization closer to the cripple stock, and we're eager to learn more about it."

Mantra said soil sampling and mapping also has been completed over the property as part of this year's program to determine the extent of the elevated gold target.

Progress at Kugruk

The junior also conducted ground geophysical surveys at its Kugruk base metal property in Northwest Alaska in its 2009 exploration program.

Mantra said results of the 15 line kilometers of IP/resistivity and gravity surveys indicate widespread concentrations of Metallic Minerals in the subsurface of the Kugruk property, some of which are coincident with known copper mineralization. The targets developed to date indicate the potential for large-scale metal deposits and define several excellent targets for drill testing for large copper-iron-gold porphyry, IOCG and replacement deposits.

"At Kugruk, we completed work focused on the better anomalies from the 2006 airborne EM and magnetic survey," Zieg said. "Our initial results look very encouraging."