Sunstone Metals Ltd (ASX:STM) is set to quadruple its landholding in highly prospective northern Ecuador through a staged acquisition of the Verde Chico Project to the west of its El Palmar gold-copper porphyry discovery.
The acquisition from the Verde Chico Group expands Sunstone’s foothold in this prospective belt to 3,672 hectares.
Notably, limited historical exploration at Verde Chico in the 1990s identified high-grade gold in veins and broad zones of lower-grade gold within a system at least 1-kilometre-long.
Looking ahead, Sunstone, which is well-funded with A$27 million in cash and equities, will undertake a systematic exploration program commencing once the full staged acquisition agreement is signed and all access approvals and permits are in place.
“Exceptional opportunity”
Sunstone managing director Malcolm Norris said: “This is an exceptional opportunity for Sunstone to secure a large, highly prospective landholding close to our El Palmar gold-copper discovery.
“The area is extremely prospective for both epithermal gold and porphyry gold-copper mineralisation.
“We will embark on a systematic exploration program, as we have done with considerable success at our El Palmar and Bramaderos projects”
: Location of the Verde Chico and El Palmar projects in northern Ecuador, and the Bramaderos Project in southern Ecuador.
Historical exploration at Verde Chico
The Verde Chico Project was explored by the Rio Tinto group (then called RTZ) in 1992-1995 and by Canadian junior Balaclava Mines in 1998.
This historical exploration identified a 1.1-kilometre-long gold-in-soil anomaly that is open to the north and south, and that includes several high-grade gold-bearing veins at surface and wide lower-grade zones of gold mineralisation in some drill holes.
It comprised regional stream sediment sampling, soil sampling, limited geophysics (CSAMT), trench sampling and diamond drilling.
The soil sampling by Rio Tinto defined a >1.1-kilometre-long gold-in-soil anomaly, coincident with a CSAMT resistivity anomaly.
This area was drilled at several locations and returned significant intervals of gold mineralisation including 68.5 metres at 1.05 g/t gold from surface in hole RVC-08, including 1-metre at 11.3 g/t from 40.5 metres.