Corex gains on Santana results

VANCOUVER — Corex Gold (CGE-V) added 20% to its share price after another set of drill results from the Santana project in Mexico’s Sonora state expanded the Nicho gold-oxide zone.

Located some 200 km southeast of Hermosillo, Santana is home to epithermal, oxidized gold mineralization, most of which sits within hills or ridges that would be easy to mine. There are several zones at Santana spread across 3 km east-west and 2 km north-south. Of late, Corex has been targeting the Nicho zone, which is east of the Benjamin and Ubaldo zones and south of the Marmero zone.

Nicho was identified through a gold-in-soil anomaly, which Corex correlated with coincident magnetic and induced-polarization anomalies. The gold at Nicho is controlled by a structural corridor that remains open in both directions and at depth. The corridor contains a high-grade core that is at least 200 metres long, 200 metres deep and 50 metres wide. The breccias surrounding the core carry lower-grade gold.

Mineralization generally starts from surface, extending from Nicho Hill to below the northeast-aligned Nicho Ridge. Gold is found alongside intense pervasive propylitic alteration with associated specula-rite- pyrite breccias.

The latest set of results included hits that better defined the high-grade core zone. The best result from the set came in hole 79, which cut 89.2 metres grading 1.16 grams gold per tonne, starting 71 metres downhole and including 8.5 metres of 3.48 grams gold. Other interesting results include 31.3 metres grading 1.39 grams gold from 120 metres down hole 76, and 27.9 metres averaging 1.22 grams gold from 218 metres in hole 70.

In a set of results released one month earlier, Corex stepped out in two directions from a strong intercept from the south end of Nicho, where hole 60 hit 79.7 metres of 0.97 gram gold. Collared 25 metres to the northwest, hole 67 cut 54 metres grading 0.47 gram gold; from 25 metres to the southeast hole 71 returned 29 metres of 0.71 gram gold. The latter hit, from hole 71, leaves Nicho open to the south, where the gold-in-soil anomaly continues.

And in September the north end of the zone returned a lengthy mineralized intercept, when hole 65 cut 301.8 metres grading 0.37 gram gold.

Corex is also working through a mapping and sampling program across the rest of the property and the effort recently identified two new areas of interest that are now being drill tested. The Mina de Oro area is 3 km northeast of Nicho, on the western side of a major batholith, and comprises an area 200 metres by 350 metres carrying anomalous gold values along a major northeast lineament. And the Cobriza zone, which is just west of Mina de Oro, hosts anomalous gold-in-soil and rock samples associated with a quartz breccia.

The latest set of Santana results added 11¢ to Corex’s share price, bringing it to 66¢. The company has a 52-week trading range of 40.5¢-$1.06 and 44 million shares outstanding. In October, Corex raised $2 million by selling four million units at 50¢ apiece. Each unit comprised a share and half a warrant exercisable at 75¢ for two years.