Great Western Minerals Group Verifies Heavy Rare Earth Grades at Douglas River

• Press Release
• Source: Great Western Minerals Group Ltd.
• On 6:00 am EDT, Friday October 9, 2009

SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN--(Marketwire - 10/09/09) - Great Western Minerals Group Ltd. ("GWMG" or the "Company") (TSX-V:GWG - News) (PINK SHEETS:GWMGF - News) is pleased to announce the results of a recent trench sampling program at its 100%-owned Douglas River project in northern Saskatchewan.

The work program focused on locating the original trenches on the property excavated by Saskatchewan Mining Development Corporation ("SMDC") in 1984, following up on mineralization discovered by Marline Oil Corporation ("Marline") between 1977 and 1982. Marline results obtained from semi-quantitative analysis yielded values of up to 10% total rare earth oxide ("TREO") with dysprosium oxide ("Dy2O3") values over 3%. SMDC followed up Marline's efforts with trenching and sampling that yielded assays as high as 7.82% TREO with a Dy2O3 value of 0.89%.

In August 2009, a Company exploration crew located the main SMDC trench and took a combination of chip and panel samples with the initial goal of confirming the historic assay values. The trench is approximately 17m long and 5m wide in medium-grained hematitic sandstone. Areas for chip and panel sampling were selected based on scintillometer readings for total radioactivity with sampling focused on areas with higher-than-background readings.

Samples were processed at the Saskatchewan Research Council ("SRC") laboratory in Saskatoon, SK, an ISO accredited institution. Standards and duplicate samples were employed and analyzed by lithium metaborate/tetraborate fusion and nitric acid digestion followed by ICP-MS analysis. The program was successful in confirming the historic assays of mineralization in the trench, with values as high as 8.75% TREO including Dy2O3 assayed at 1.15%. Assay results are presented in the table below:

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                 Sample                          incl
Sample No.         Type      LREO%  HREO%(1)    Dy2O3%  TREO%(2)  HREO/TREO
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202608             Chip      0.02      3.59      0.44      3.61        99.4%
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202609             Chip      0.01      6.31      0.82      6.32        99.8%
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202610             Chip      0.01      8.74      1.15      8.75        99.9%
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202611             Chip      0.02      5.84      0.74      5.86        99.7%
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202612             Chip      0.01      1.15      0.14      1.16        99.1%
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202613             Chip      0.01      4.24      0.54      4.25        99.8%
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202614             Chip      0.01      1.41      0.17      1.42        99.3%
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202615             Chip      0.01      3.02      0.39      3.03        99.7%
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202616             Chip      0.01      3.46      0.45      3.47        99.7%
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202617             Chip      0.01      5.07      0.64      5.08        99.8%
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202618             Chip      0.01      3.55      0.46      3.56        99.7%
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202619             Chip      0.01      4.45      0.57      4.46        99.8%
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202922          Panel(3)     0.01      0.07      0.01      0.08        87.5%
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202923            Panel      0.01      1.90      0.23      1.91        99.5%
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202924            Panel      0.01      0.07      0.01      0.08        87.5%
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202925            Panel      0.01      0.02      0.01      0.03        66.7%
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Notes

1.  HREO represents total heavy rare earth oxides, comprising yttrium plus
    europium to lutetium as oxides.
2.  TREO represents total rare earth oxides, comprising HREO plus lanthanum
    to samarium as oxides.
3.  The panel sampling covered approximately 4 square metres of the west
    wall of the main trench and included mineralized and non-mineralized
    rock.

The heavy rare earth elements are critical to applications like permanent magnets, flat panel displays, lasers and energy efficient lighting. In particular, dysprosium is required to give a neodymium-iron-boron permanent magnet the ability to perform under high temperatures such as those experienced under the hood of a hybrid vehicle where the permanent magnet electric motor resides.

"With a 99% heavy rare earth distribution, Douglas River seems to be a unique heavy rare earth occurrence that could prove to be very important to the rare earth industry," says Jim Engdahl, President and CEO of Great Western Minerals Group. Engdahl adds, "Most of the deposits currently being mined or developed do not have a significant distribution of heavy rare earths and as a result it is expected that these elements will be in short supply in the near future. An occurrence like Douglas River certainly brings balance to our portfolio of rare earth projects and may well prove to be the answer to expected global shortages of the heavy rare earths."

John Pearson, MSc, PGeo, Vice-President Exploration for GWMG, is the qualified person responsible for reviewing the contents of this news release.

About Great Western Minerals Group Ltd.

Great Western Minerals Group Ltd. is a Canadian-based company with six rare earth exploration and development properties in North America with an option on a sizable additional property in South Africa. In addition, as part of the Company's strategy to pursue a vertically-integrated business model, the Company's wholly-owned subsidiaries of Less Common Metals Limited located in Birkenhead UK, and Great Western Technologies Inc., located in Troy, Michigan, produce a variety of specialty alloys for use in the battery, magnet and aerospace industries. These "designer" alloys include those containing copper, nickel, cobalt and the rare earth elements.

Cautionary Statement on Forward-Looking Information: Certain information set out in this News Release constitutes forward-looking information. Forward-looking statements (often, but not always, identified by the use of words such as "expect", "may", "could", "anticipate" or "will" and similar expressions) are based upon the opinions, expectations and estimates of management of the Company as at the date the statements are made and are subject to a variety of known and unknown risks and uncertainties and other factors that could cause actual events or outcomes to differ materially from those anticipated or implied by such forward-looking statements. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance upon forward-looking information. Although the Company believes that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements set out in this press release or incorporated herein by reference are reasonable, it can give no assurance that such expectations will prove to have been correct.

The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does not accept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this news release.

 
Contacts:
Great Western Minerals Group Ltd.
Ron Malashewski
Manager of Investor Relations
(306) 659-4516
Great Western Minerals Group Ltd.
226 Cardinal Crescent,
Saskatoon, SK S7L 6H8
info@gwmg.ca
www.gwmg.ca