Soltoro Aims to Bulk Up in Mexico

Soltoro’s (SOL-V) focus on bulk-tonnage copper, gold and silver deposits in Mexico has been paying off as of late.

Since mid-August, the Toronto-based company’s shares have been on a tear, shooting up to 65 recently from 33 in mid-August. The company has roughly 20 million shares outstanding.

News that it had started diamond drilling on its 100%-owned Bacanora gold project in Sonora, Mexico, kept the momentum moving upwards in late September, helping to pump its share price up 2 on roughly 230,000 shares traded.

The drilling program at Bacanora is designed to determine if a bulk-tonnage gold deposit exists at the site. The company says it believes such a deposit to be the source feeding numerous placer gold deposits downstream along the Yaqui River.

Strong results from an earlier trenching program have buoyed the company’s hopes for the drilling campaign. Trenching results were highlighted by 6 metres grading 2.48 grams gold per tonne.

Soltoro says it has already drilled two of the 10 holes that will cut a total of 2,000 metres into the rock when it is done.

Thus far, two different styles of mineralization have been observed at the deposit: sheeted vein mineralization hosted in a felsic intrusive, and sediment-hosted veins (SHV) in the underlying sediments.

SHVs are most common in Asia and consist of gold in quartz veins hosted by shale and siltstone sedimentary rocks. They can be gold-only systems, making for simple metallurgy.

The drill program at Bacanora comes on the heels of results from Soltoro’s El Rayo project, in Mexico’s Jalisco province.

In mid-September, Soltoro announced that drilling had encountered new wide zones outside of the historic resource area.

Highlights included 37.5 metres grading 1.78 grams gold per tonne, 31 grams silver, and 0.3% lead; 15 metres grading 1.56 grams gold, 9 grams silver, and 0.13% lead; and 3 metres grading 2.38 grams gold, 129 grams silver, and 1.13% lead.

The widths and grade of the mineralized zones at depth are sufficient to support both open-pit and underground mining for gold and silver, Soltoro says. In all, it has defined 5 km of mineralized struc-tures that are open on strike to the northeast and northwest.