Spanish colonial miners were the first to drive tunnels into the weathered mineralized zones at Santo Domingo three centuries ago but were forced to stop when they hit hard unweathered rock.
It wasn’t until 1994 that the deposit, 90 km northwest of Guadalajara in central Mexico, attracted any interest, this time from a government agency that collected 347 samples from the rock dumps the Spanish miners left behind.
The dumps contained 21,595 tonnes of rock averaging 308 grams silver per tonne and 1.53 grams gold per tonne.
Today, George Cobourn, president and chief executive of Stroud Resources (SDR-V), which owns 100% of Santo Domingo, believes the Toronto-based junior has “merely scratched the surface” of the epithermal silver-gold project.
A resource calculation based on 27 drill holes, all of which encountered mineralization, has defined measured and indicated resources of 4.35 million tonnes grading 0.42 gram gold per tonne and 89 grams silver per tonne for contained gold of 58,670 oz. and 12.42 million oz. silver.
In the inferred category Santo Domingo contains 3.42 million tonnes grading 0.33 gram gold and 83 grams silver for contained gold of 36,817 oz. and 9.13 million oz. silver.
Cobourn believes the deposit is potentially open-pittable.
The geological model for the project is the Cinco Minas deposit 9.5 km to the southwest of Santo Domingo, the company says. The majority of the silver and gold production from the Cinco Minas mine occurred in the 1920s, when 15 million ounces of silver and 97,500 ounces of gold were produced from 1.2 million tons of mine ore, with silver and gold recoveries ranging from 88% to 90.5%.
Santo Domingo lies on the western side of the Sierra Madre mountain range in Jalisco state. Two silver mining districts near Santo Domingo in the western belt include: San Martin de Bolanos, with past production of 40-50 million oz. silver, about 65 km north of Santo Domingo, and Bolanos, with 60-100 million ounces of historic silver production, 85 km northeast of the project.
Santo Domingo’s two main zones, La Rayas and Guadalupe, are in the centre of the property and dip 65 to 75 degrees northeast towards the river. The La Rayas zone is generally 30-35 metres wide and has a known strike length of roughly 700 metres (based on the presence of numerous pits and adits.)
The more recently discovered Guadalupe zone is sub-parallel to La Rayas and lies about 125 metres to the southeast. The Guadalupe zone has an observed width greater than 10 metres, and a strike length of over 700 metres.
About 35% of the strike length of the two zones were drilled to a depth of about 150 meters, leaving room to expand drilling both to the north and south, at depth and up-dip to the top of the hill, where the structure outcrops, the company says.
The site’s proximity to Guadalajara provides excellent access to roads and facilities, with power and water supply on-site.
In addition to its 100%-owned Santo Domingo project, Stroud has an option on the Santa Cruz silver project, 100% interests in the Hislop gold property near Timmins in northern Ontario, and the Leckie gold property near North Bay.
The debt-free junior generates cash flow from a 3.75% interest in six natural gas and natural gas condensate wells in central Alberta.
At press-time Stroud was trading at 8¢ per share and has traded in a range of 2.5¢-10¢ over the last year. The junior has 142.1 million shares outstanding.
Be the first to comment on "Stroud releases resource on Santo Domingo"