More high-grade silver for Yamana

Yamana Resources (YRI-T) has hit high-grade silver at its Santa Cruz project in southern Argentina.

At the 44-sq.-km Bacon prospect, the company intercepted high-grade silver values that confirm encouraging rock-chip samples from an earlier surface program.

Yamana has completed 33 shallow reverse circulation holes totalling 1,059 metres. Results from the first 18 holes, drilled at the North Bacon target, showed the most impressive values. In the first hole, Yamana encountered 14 metres of near-surface mineralization grading 737 grams silver and 1.3 grams gold per tonne, including 10 metres of 1,017 grams silver and 1.8 grams gold.

A near-surface interval in hole 16 measured 24 metres grading 664 grams silver and 0.68 gram gold, including 6 metres grading 2,579 grams silver and 2.6 grams gold.

Mineralization is associated with classical epithermal quartz veins in a zone stretching eastward for 9 km. Yamana geologists have only examined one-fifth of its length. The explored portion of the main vein pinches and swells, from a few centimetres up to 20 metres in thickness, at a dip of 45 to vertical.

Drilling results from the South Bacon prospect, roughly 8 km from North Bacon, were less spectacular. The best intervals were in holes 23 and 28, which hit 8 metres grading 42 grams silver and 0.13 gram gold and 12 metres grading 50 grams silver and 0.26 gram gold, respectively.

The Santa Cruz project includes 15 prospect areas covering 836 sq. km over a thick pile of Jurassic-age rhyolitic volcanic rocks. Extensive epithermal mineralization within these rocks defines the emerging Vanguardia precious-metals province.

The company started its hit-and-run drill program in January to quickly evaluate the potential of several prospects at the large Santa Cruz project.

Drilling at the Bacon prospects follows similar work at the Lejano prospect, 150 km to the northwest, where high-grade silver values were also encountered.

The silver values encountered by Yamana at both Bacon and Lejano depict what the company believes is mineralogical zonation across the precious metals province. In the west, including Bacon and Lejano, the silver-to-gold ratio is typically greater than 100-to-1; in the central region, home of Yamana’s Estrella prospect, the ratio is 10-to-1; and in the east, in the vicinity of the Martinetas and Goleta prospects, it is typically 1-to-1.

The drill has moved on to the Goleta prospect, where the company plans as many as 10 shallow holes, after which it will move to the Hombro prospect.

Yamana expects to be back at Lejano by late March or early April for follow-up drilling. In the meantime, it has beefed up its exploration effort at Lejano with more detailed mapping and sampling, as well as improving the living conditions at the camp. It also picked up more ground in the region.