Matamec Announces the Discovery of New Rare Earth-Yttrium Showings in the Kipawa Alkaline Complex

Matamec Announces the Discovery of New Rare Earth-Yttrium Showings in the Kipawa Alkaline Complex

Matamec Explorations Inc. announce the discovery of new rare earth showings on its 100% Zeus property in Temiscamingue. The property covers 14 371 hectares and is located in the Kipawa alkaline complex.

Mining Engineering magazine mentions in its “Industrial Minerals Review” June 2008 edition that consumption of REE, especially in automotive catalysts, fluid cracking catalysts, permanent magnets, trichomatic fluorescent lightning and magnetostrictive alloys, is expected to continue to have strong growth. Increased consumption of REE bearing nickel-metal hybride (NiMH) rechargeable batteries has continued as gasoline prices climbed. Novel applications incorporating REE, such as magnetic refrigeration, fuel cells and specialty high-strength low-weight alloys are expected to continue to be discovered and developed.

Since June 2007, Matamec has conducted six short exploration campaigns on this property, four of them from May to November 2008. These campaigns had two important objectives : 1) complete preparatory work on the Sheffield zone in expectation of a 43-101 REE-yttrium-zirconium resource calculation, and 2) bring property-wide exploration to the fore and seek out REE-yttrium, uranium and gold mineralization similar to those found by Globex Mining (please see their press release and MD&A dated June 19 and November 5, 2008) and Aurizon Mines (as outlined in their press releases and MD&A dated June 12-13 and November 6 2008).

On the Zeus property, known REE, yttrium and zirconium mineralization is hosted by eudialyte, mosandrite and britholithe encased in the black and white syenites of the Kipawa complex. Mineralization concentrates at the 1.3 km long Sheffield zone, which has extensions and segments that have remained slightly drilled or completely un-drilled. 1991 historical resources for the zone outline 1.26 Mt at 0.15% yttrium, 0.96% zirconium for the West zone, and 1.01 Mt at 0.14% yttrium, 1.17% zirconium for the East zone (a qualified person has not done sufficient work to classify the historical estimate as current mineral resources, the issuer is not treating the historical estimate as current mineral resources and the historical estimate should not be relied upon). It should be noted that REE content was not systematically measured in drill holes at the time since the main element considered was yttrium. REE applications have drastically increased since then as well, particularly in relation to heavy REE (Tb to Lu).

In June 2008, Matamec acquired several confidential documents, including a heliborne Radiometric-Mag-VLF geophysical survey that covered the entire property. This survey influenced the targeted exploration campaigns for 2008, which led to the discovery of four REE-yttrium showings on the Zeus property, namely the TH, Couleuvre, Falaises and Surprise showings. The best values were obtained from grab samples coming from the Couleuvre and TH showings, respectively with greater than 11.34% and 7.2% total REE, combined with 0.93% and 2.16% yttrium (see table available at the following address: http://media3.marketwire.com/docs/Matamec_ENG_1224.pdf for all values presently available for these showings).

The TH showing is located in the north section of the property, in the same area as the Eagle showing of Aurizon Mines. The TH showing lies at the centre of a 200m east-west by 700m north-south soil anomaly which is presently open both to the north and to the south. The Surprise showing is located in the east section of the property and is hosted in biotite and amphibole-rich rocks with large quantities of associated garnet. Of lesser importance but potentially leading to mineralization of greater volume, the Couleuvre and Falaises showings are located in the heart of the property and are associated respectively with an intermediate sill and with marbles. Matamec will also start a mineralogical study aimed at identifying the ore-minerals present in each of these new showings.

In other areas, a property-wide 43-101 technical report is nearing completion. In addition, a 43-101 compliant resource calculation began on November 11th 2008 with the channel sampling of four trenches (208 m gathered) in the Sheffield zone under the supervision of SGS-Geostat. Both of these activities are ongoing and will be completed over the course of 2009.

Matamec is exploring for significant gold deposits in the Timmins mining camp in Ontario focusing on its two main targets, namely the Matheson JV with Goldcorp and the Montclerg properties. In Quebec, the Company is exploring for precious and base metals, REE and uranium deposits on Lesperance, Sakami, Valmont, Vulcain and Zeus.

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