Sulliden Exploration (SUE-M) has upped its resource estimate for the Los Socavones epithermal gold zone on its 100%-owned Las Huaquillas property in northwestern Peru.
The new estimate pegs Los Socavones’ total resources at 6.57 million tonnes grading 2.09 grams gold per tonne and 25.2 grams silver, for 443,000 contained ounces of gold and 5.3 million contained ounces of silver.
The calculation is based on 3,500 metres of diamond drilling and 1,200 metres of underground work performed by state-owned Minero Peru between 1987 and 1992 and by Sulliden in 1997.
Minero Peru had previously estimated a resource at Los Socavones of 2.6 million tonnes of 2.69 grams gold and 27 grams silver.
Mineralization at Los Socavones consists of polymetallic sulphide veins and veinlets which form a high-grade stockwork surrounded by a low-grade zone of disseminated pyrite. Mineralization occurs within a late fault zone that strikes northeasterly and dips about 60 to the southeast. The host rock is a Tertiary subvolcanic porphyritic andesite that has been intruded by quartz diorite.
Sulliden’s work during 1997 showed that Los Socavones can be followed for more than 1 km along strike and to a vertical depth of about 200 metres, where it remains open. The work also showed that the gold structure has a true thickness averaging 20 metres (varying from 1.3 metres to 48.5 metres).
An upcoming third phase of drilling will attempt to add tonnage to Los Socavones along strike and at depth. The program will also test two porphyry copper-gold systems, Cementerio and San Antonio, discovered by Sulliden last year.
Funding for the program will come from Sulliden’s working capital, which stood at about $3 million on Jan. 31.
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