Francisco eyes targets in Guatemala

Vancouver — Junior Francisco Gold (FGX-V) has identified additional targets on ground surrounding the promising Marlin Main zone in Guatemala.

Regional prospecting and sampling 30 km southeast of the zone has uncovered a 1.5-km-long, northwest-striking quartz vein structure averaging 5-20 metres in width. Channel sampling across the structure, dubbed San Bartolo, returned grades of up to 1 gram gold and 173 grams silver per tonne.

Moving 45 km south of Marlin, the company has identified a low-sulphidation epithermal gold target, called Jesse. The prospect, which covers a 500-by-200-metre area, yielded 0.2-2.2 grams gold in grab samples.

The third new area of mineralization, 50 km west of Main zone, is marked by a 10-sq.-km area of hydrothermal alteration. Surface samples collected to date returned up to 0.5 gram gold.

Drilling has resumed on the Marlin property, with Francisco testing geophysical anomalies west, east and south of the Main zone, So far, 46 core holes have outlined near-surface, oxidized gold-silver mineralization over an area measuring 450 by 250 metres.

The property, which lies 140 km northwest of Guatemala City and 60 km from the Mexican border, is part of a package originally held by Montana Gold, a privately owned Canadian company. Since it began exploration work in Guatemala in 1996, Montana has staked more than 6,000 sq. km of mineral concessions along a major structural trend in the country’s western region. Francisco acquired Montana by issuing 650,000 shares, and if 1.5 million oz. gold-equivalent ounces are defined as proven and probable, it will issue up to 1.4 million more.

The Main zone is a low-sulphidation, epithermal system hosted in Tertiary volcanic and volcaniclastic rocks. The main Marlin complex comprises a series of massive-to-fragmental pyroclastic rocks that host a large part of the Main zone’s high-grade mineralization. An underlying volcaniclastic sequence consists of conglomerate to fine sandstone-siltstone that can also host low-grade mineralization.

In Chihuahua state, Mexico, engineering work to complete a final feasibility study on Francisco’s wholly owned El Sauzal project is continuing. Test results from bulk metallurgical sampling returned an average gold recovery of 94%.

El Sauzal contains an oxide gold reserve of 20.9 million tonnes grading 3 grams gold per tonne, equivalent to 2 million contained ounces. Prefeasibility work has deemed the reserve minable by open-pit methods.

Geologically, El Sauzal represents a high-sulphidation, epithermal gold deposit. The host rocks comprise andesite flows, tuffs and breccias, which grade upward into intercalated, highly altered dacitic volcanic rocks. Gold mineralization occurs in the upper dacite, along with quartz-kaolinite- dickite-alnite alteration. The dacites are overlain unconformably by post-mineral rhyolite, dacite breccias and conglomerates that contain no significant gold mineralization.

At Sept. 30, Francisco had $32.2 million in cash and short-term investments.