Aurania Resources Ltd (TSX-V:ARU, OTCQB:AUIAF) said it has decided on the location of the next set of drill holes at the Tiria-Shimpia target on its Lost Cities-Cutucu project in Ecuador after positive soil sampling results.
According to the junior resource firm, sampling from the 22-kilometre long target revealed an area of consistent silver and zinc enrichment over a 2.5-kilometre length.
Drilling is expected to start on a new hole within a week, Aurania said, with platforms being prepared to drill two holes to test for mineralization at a depth of around 100 metres.
READ: Aurania Resources intersects “significant” silver-zinc mineralization at its Lost Cities-Cutucu project in Ecuador
The new holes will be drilled around five kilometres from drill holes SH-001 and SH-002, and around seven kilometres from SH-003. They will test an area where the soil layer contains the highest silver and zinc grades, Aurania said.
Silver grades of over 1 gram per ton (g/t) extend in soil over at least one kilometre and zinc grades of over 800 g/t circle the silver enrichment. Rock chip samples have also returned grades of up to 73 g/t silver and 49% zinc.
Aurania CEO Keith Barron told investors that there is more information hiding in the numbers.
“It should be recognized that 1 g/t silver in a sample of saprolitic tropical soil is highly unusual, as is up to almost 5% zinc in soil. Such naturally occurring levels of heavy metal would actually be toxic to plant life and my experience internationally is that they are only found in "kill zones" where little will grow, directly above metal-bearing subcrop,” Barron said in a statement.
Metal contents are derived from weathered underlying mineralization, while metal anomalies in soil can sometimes be shifted laterally from their origin by groundwater movement, Barron said. However, when a number of metals are highly anomalous together it usually means the source is directly below, the CEO added.
“Tiria-Shimpia may be two superimposed mineralizing systems and what we do not show here are the many significant coherent linear anomalies of precious metal pathfinder elements such as selenium, arsenic and antimony. This is a very strong mineralizing system," he concluded.
Aurania’s Lost Cities-Cutucu project, is located in the Jurassic Metallogenic Belt in the eastern foothills of the Andes mountain range of southeastern Ecuador.
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