NEWS RELEASE: St. Elias Mines Ltd. Stage 2 of Titan 24 Geophysical Survey Commences03/23/2010 [ACCESSWIRE]

Lori McClenahan, President of St. Elias Mines Ltd. (“St. Elias” or the “Company”), is pleased to announce that the Company has retained Quantec Geoscience Ltd. (“Quantec”) to extend the recent Titan 24 geophysical survey at the Tesoro Gold Project (the "Property") located in southwestern Peru. The survey is scheduled to commence in mid-April.

Stage 2 Titan 24 Geophysical Survey

The upcoming Stage 2 program has been designed to follow-up the results of the recent Titan 24 Geophysical Survey ("Stage 1") completed in fall 2009. Stage 2 will extend the geophysical survey to cover areas between the existing Titan 24 survey lines and will consist of 18 survey lines (totalling 43.2 line kilometres) of DCIP and MT data acquisition. Each Titan 24 line will be approximately 2.4 kilometres long with each survey line having the ability to read (acquire data) over a 100-metre wide zone. Line spacing with be at 250 metres. The estimated time for the field portion of the project will be 28 days. All field data will then be compiled, processed and interpreted by experienced professionals at Quantec’s Interpretation Centre in Toronto, Ontario. Results will be released when available.

Stage 1 Titan 24 Geophysical Survey

The Stage 1 Titan 24 Geophysical Survey consisted of nine survey lines (totalling 21.6 line kilometres) with one line along the structural corridor (the "axis") and eight lines perpendicular to the axis over each of the known gold zones of the Property. The Stage 1 program successfully identified twelve (12) high priority targets and eight (8) second priority targets for follow up at the Tesoro Project. Several of the Titan 24 anomalies successfully correlate with areas where gold mineralization was previously discovered at Tesoro, particularly within the "Tesoro Structural Corridor", Zona Canchete, Zona Central, Zona Sur, Zona Incognito and Zona Este. The interpreted deep anomalies suggest the presence of significant mineralization and/or alteration zones at depth. In addition, the Stage 1 survey identified an ovoid (egg shaped) anomaly beneath Zona Central that is 1,450m long x 400m wide and 300 - 500m thick and is open to the south.

Stage 1 of the Titan 24 Survey also identified targets of interest that are outside of the mineralized "structural" corridor and that require field investigation. The Company's geological team is presently designing a surface program (rock/soil sampling, trenching ....) to examine and evaluate geophysical anomalies that have not been explained.

A diamond drilling program initially comprising 5,000 meters is also planned to test high-priority targets identified from the Stage 1 program. The drill program will commence upon receipt of all necessary permitting.

Tesoro Gold Project

The Tesoro Gold Project is 100% owned by the Company with no underlying royalties. The Property covers approximately 2,000 hectares (5,000 acres) and is part of the well-known gold-bearing Nazca-Ocoña belt that is located in southern Peru. The Nazca-Ocoña gold belt has a long mining history dating back to pre-Incan time. Gold is associated with disseminated to semi-massive sulphides in quartz veins cutting a diorite intrusion. The continuity of the quartz veins and fractures is very impressive in the Nazca-Ocoña belt. While the veins tend to be narrow, the grade is significant and the mineralized structures tend to extend along strike for kilometers and to depths of up to 1,000 meters.

To date, the Company has identified five mineralized zones with more than 50 quartz veins (having a total combined length of 9km) at the Tesoro Project and has carried out underground exploration and development work on three of these veins (C1, C2 and A4 Veins.) The veins are mesothermal, indicating that the vein structures may extend to considerable depths.

To date, a total of 1,126 tons of bulk sample material averaging 0.93 oz/t gold has been extracted from ongoing underground exploration development at several locations on the Tesoro Property including:

· 643 tons averaging 0.77 oz/t gold from the A4 Vein;

· 451 tons averaging 1.00 oz/t gold from the C1 Vein; and

· 32 tons averaging 3.40 oz/t gold from the C2 Vein.

The Tesoro Property has never been evaluated to depth, or to its full strike potential. This leaves a large potential for the discovery of additional mineralization.

Qualified Person

All technical work is being supervised by, and the contents of this news release have been verified by, John Brophy, P.Geo., a Canadian geologist residing in Peru, who is a “qualified person” as defined in National Instrument 43-101, Standards of Disclosure for Mineral Projects.

For additional information on St. Elias and its projects, please visit us at www.steliasmines.com or call 1-888-895-5522 (toll free US and Canada).

ST. ELIAS MINES LTD.

(signed “Lori McClenahan”)