Kootenay Silver Inc said that its joint venture partner and JV operator Aztec Minerals Corp (TSX-V:AZT, OTCQB:AZZTF) has continued to intersect broad, high-grade gold mineralization during the 2022 reverse circulation (RC) drilling at the California target on the Cervantes property in Mexico’s Sonora State.
The company said the best of three drill holes intercepted 167.2 meters (m) grading 1.002 grams per tonne (g/t) gold including 24.4m grading 4.247 g/t gold.
Two fences of drilling have now been completed on each side of the previously drilled fence of holes on the California shallow oxide gold target with the objective of expanding the size of the zone identified in 2017-2018 drilling, the company said. This has been successful so far with a footprint now measuring 250m to 500m wide and 900m long with mineralization continuous vertically to at least 245m.
READ: Kootenay Silver reports best hole to date in current program at its Cervantes JV project in Mexico
California Zone drill highlights include:
- 1.002 g/t gold over 167.2m in mineralized quartz-feldspar porphyry, including 24.4m of 4.247 g/t gold in CAL22-004, located in the central part of the mineralized zone
- 0.374 g/t gold over 99.1m in mineralized porphyries and hydrothermal breccias in CAL22-002 located at the west end of the mineralized zone
- 0.451 g/t gold over 45.7m in mineralized porphyries in CAL22-003, including 13.7m of 0.868 g/t gold located at the south end of the mineralized zone
Kootenay Silver noted that reported lengths are apparent widths, not true widths, and the observed gold mineralization appears to be widely distributed in disseminations, fractures and veinlets within quartz-feldspar porphyry, feldspar porphyry stocks and related hydrothermal breccias.
The Aztec-Kootenay JV has now completed its Phase 2 RC program of 26 holes, totaling 4,649m at the Cervantes property. Four holes drilled into the Purisma target have been previously reported. The single drill holes at Jasper and California North found mineralized quartz-feldspar porphyry with results pending.
The company said the JV will now carry out channel sampling and geologic mapping of the new drill roads at California, California Norte and Jasper, as well as to expand surface sampling and mapping on the property in general to continue the 2021 phase 1 surface program.
Kootenay Silver is an exploration company actively engaged in the discovery and development of mineral projects in the Sierra Madre Region of Mexico and in British Columbia, Canada.
Contact the author at stephen.gunnion@proactiveinvestors.com