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TYLER, Texas, October 6, 2010 /PRNewswire/ — Texas Rare Earth Resources Corp. (Pink Sheets: SDSR), formerly Standard Silver Corporation, announced today it has executed a 20 year lease (“Lease”) with the Texas General Land Office covering 860 acres at Round Top Mountain in Hudspeth County, Texas (“Round Top”). Additionally, Texas Rare Earth owns prospecting permits for approximately 10,000 acres adjacent to the Lease. We believe the favorable mineralogy and the 67% heavy to light rare earth ratios in samples from the deposit may offer attractive targets ranging from a one billion ton plus bulk low grade mineable deposit hosted in the Round Top rhyolite intrusive, to more conventional higher grade targets hosted deeper in the intrusive and in the carbonate wall rocks. Should processing of this rhyolite prove feasible, we believe Round Top has the potential to become a long term domestic source of these strategically vital metals.
Management plans to pursue several alternatives for developing the rare earth (REE) potential of Round Top. Round Top was the site of extensive drilling in the 1980’s by Cabot Corporation and Cyprus Minerals. Based on published sets of samples (Price et al 1990 GSA Special Paper 246), as well as internal sampling now in progress, we believe that the in place value per metric ton of the rhyolite is sufficient to warrant examining the possibility of developing a large scale open-pit mining operation if a process can be developed to concentrate the rare earth minerals. The mass of the Round Top rhyolite body has been estimated by Texas Bureau of Economic Geology geologists to be at least 1.6 billion metric tons. The heavy to light rare earth ratio of 67% seen to date is highly encouraging. There also exists a possibility that other minerals containing other rare elements such as niobium, tantalum, zirconium, hafnium and lithium may be co-produced…
High grade replacement deposits in the underlying limestones and veins or pegmatites within the rhyolite may exist. Unlike most REE deposits now being explored, the Round Top mineralizing system has not been deeply eroded and only its upper parts are exposed.