Intrepid confirms high grades at Casposo (January 17, 2003)

Surface sampling at the Casposo gold-silver project in San Juan province, Argentina, has returned “bonanza” style grades for Intrepid Minerals (IAU-V).

Intrepid, which is currently earning an outright interest in the property from former operator Newmont Mining (NEM-N), took large bedrock samples on grids over the Kamila and Mercado vein systems. The samples, which are to be used for metallurgical testing, returned high gold and silver head grades.

A sample from the Kamila zone’s B vein returned a head grade of 8.1 grams gold and 102 grams silver per tonne, while another on an extension of the B vein returned 7.9 grams gold and 148 grams silver per tonne. A sample over the Inca vein ran 115 grams gold and 569 grams silver, while one over the Aztec vein had 4 grams gold and 129 grams silver per tonne.

On the Mercado zone, a sample taken from a 10-by-20 metre grid ran 4 grams gold and 140 grams silver per tonne.

Cyanide bottle-roll tests of the material gave gold recoveries of 85-94% on material that had been crushed to 80 mesh (0.177 mm) or smaller, rising to 91-96% on material that had been crushed to 150 mesh (0.104 mm). Silver recoveries were 70-94% in the coarser material and 82-99% in the finer. Gravity testing on the sample from the Inca vein (which showed the highest head grades) indicated about 25% of the gold could be recovered in a standard circuit.