Da Capo tests Bolivian project

Toronto-listed Da Capo Resources is encouraged by initial drill results from the Amayapampa property in Bolivia.

The junior can earn up to a 70% interest in the historic gold mine by paying the owner $6 million (half by March, 1996, and the rest by March, 1998). The Amayapampa is the largest underground gold mine in Bolivia; it produces about 150 tonnes per day and employs about 200 miners. A small on-site mill cranks out about 12,000 oz. per year.

Underground workings are extensive, covering a strike length of at least 2,000 metres and a vertical distance of 300-400 metres. Miners are following a swarm of parallel quartz veins within a 50-metre-wide zone, using narrow-vein mining methods.

To date, Da Capo has collected 539 five-metre channel samples from 116 different crosscuts within existing workings over a 500-metre strike length and a 214-metre vertical extent. The average gold grade of all the samples is 3.18 grams per tonne, or 2.31 grams after cutting high values to 10 grams. Using the results from the sampling program, consultant Kilborn Engineering Pacific estimates the proven and probable mineral resource at 4 million tonnes grading 3 grams.

Currently, drillers are testing the strike extent of the zone outside the known underground workings in an effort to expand reserves for an open-pit deposit.

The first hole was abandoned at 102 metres after entering old mine workings at the start of the mineralized zone. The second hole, AP2, intersected a 145-metre-wide zone of quartz veining and pyritic sediments grading an average of 2.12 grams. The true width of the zone is estimated at 101 metres. Hole AP3, 75 metres on strike from AP2, intersected 108.5 metres of quartz veining and pyritized sediments grading 0.94 grams over 59.8 metres. Hole AP4, 100 metres on strike from AP3, intersected 24 metres of mineralization before being abandoned in underground workings. Assay results from the hole are pending.

Da Capo is accelerating the program by adding a third drill rig. Meanwhile, in southern Bolivia, Orvana Minerals (TSE) has discovered a large, volcanic-hosted gold system on the Pueblo Viejo de Lipez property. The project forms part of the Altiplano joint venture involving Orvana, EMUSA and Bernstein. The group can acquire a 100% interest in the property for US$2.5 million, payable over two years. Echo Bay Mines (TSE), in turn, can earn a 51% interest by funding the first US$3.5 million in expenditures. The gold mineralization is associated with tungsten- and bismuth-bearing veins flanked by stringer zones and stockworks. The vein system has a strike length of at least 2,000 metres, a width of up to 500 metres and a vertical extent of more than 750 metres. Sampling on surface and from existing underground workings has returned assays of more than 10 grams from the four primary developed veins, and values ranging from 0.5 to 5 grams between the veins.

Detailed surface and underground sampling is under way in preparation for drilling in the new year.