LATIN AMERICA — Magna solidifies holdings

Junior Consolidated Magna Ventures (CMV-V) has earned a majority interest in the Koala I property in Mexico’s Chihuahua state.

The Vancouver-based company now owns a 70% interest in the 990-ha property, in addition to a 100% interest in 11,770 ha of surrounding claims. NovaGold Resources (NRI-T) holds a 20% interest in Koala I and can earn another 25.9% from Consolidated Magna, along with a 51% interest in the surrounding claims, by spending US$3 million on exploration. The remaining 10% interest in Koala I is held by two private companies.

Since mid-1996, Magna has paid $75,000 in cash and issued 75,000 shares to the property vendors. It has also surpassed the required $200,000 in exploration costs, focusing primarily on outlining base metal deposits that are similar to the Santa Eulalia and Naica deposits.

Santa Eulalia, situated 100 km from Koala, has produced more than 20 million tonnes of 15% combined lead-zinc, up to 1% copper and 150 grams silver per tonne. The nearby Naica deposit has yielded more than 15 million tonnes grading 5.5% lead, 4.3% zinc, 0.34% copper, 177 grams silver and 0.34 gram gold. Both are described as chimney and manto-style replacement massive sulphide deposits.

While still at an early stage of exploration, the Koala claims have yielded encouraging results. Grab samples from outcrops in a 3-km-long-by-500-metre-wide zone of intense dolomitzation, silicification and brecciation have returned up to 3.92% copper, 6.36% lead, 16.7% zinc and 46.3 grams silver. As well, eight holes drilled below selected outcrops and portions of a chargeability anomaly that is coincident with the alteration zone have returned erratic, but strongly anomalous, grades of these metals.

Mineralization is primarily associated with intermediate sills, iron and silica-rich lenses, and barite veins. The sills are believed to be continuous over several hundreds of metres in strike length and dip gently toward a regional fault paralleling the northern edge of the alteration zone. The lenses and veins parallel the fault and, although discontinuous individually, occur in zones that can reach tens of metres in width and hundreds of metres in length.

Exploration is expected to continue after the data collected thus far has been analyzed.