Inca Pacific initiates Peruvian exploration — Program aimed at testing epithermal gold-silver targets

In west-Central Peru, the first phase of exploration is under way at the Pasacancha property of Vancouver-based Inca Pacific Resources (IP-V).

The property covers a belt of Mesozoic sedimentary rocks and Tertiary intrusives that encompass the Aguila copper-Molybdenum porphyry deposit and the adjacent Pasacancha mine, a former silver-lead-zinc producer.

Exploration at Pasacancha, which is situated in Ancash province, will attempt to identify epithermal gold-silver mineralization in various stratigraphic and structural settings adjacent to, or overlying, a

copper-Molybdenum-bearing porphyry system.

Inca Pacific’s claim does not include a 100-ha block covering the Aguila pit but, instead, covers ground to the north, east and south.

Initial exploration at Pasacancha will include geological mapping, rock geochemistry and trenching.

The Aquila porphyry deposit has returned grades of 0.8% copper and 0.029% molybdenite. Little exploration was conducted on the property before that deposit was rushed into production by a private Peruvian company in the late 1970s. Production was brief, ending in 1981. Little is known about the deposit, and reserve estimates range from 5 to 23 million tonnes.

“There’s a great deal of interest in Ancash,” says John McCluskey, Inca’s vice-president of finance. “Everybody is looking for gold-silver targets similar to the Pierina deposit [of Barrick Gold].”

He adds that there is evidence that large fault structures exist on the Pasacancha property and that the old Pasacancha mine is associated with one of these.

Inca Pacific believes the deposit may be part of a larger, undetected porphyry system lying north and east of the current pit, where copper mineralization occurs in the Mesozoic rocks.

The Pasacancha mine operated as an underground project from 1923 to 1958, producing silver, lead and zinc; copper credits were also recorded.

Mineralization is contained in steeply dipping veins and breccias that appear to be controlled by a northwesterly-Trending fault zone, the company says.

The gold, mercury and arsenic content of samples taken by the company from the mine, as well as from the northwestern part of the property, is higher than usual for a silver and base metal district.

Tests from those samples indicate that a previously unidentified epithermal gold-silver environment may exist on the property.