Minera Andes begins drilling at El Pluma-Cerro Saavedra

The first phase of drilling at the El Pluma-Cerro Saavedra gold-silver property in Argentina is underway for Minera Andes (MAI-A).

The company plans to complete up to 20 holes, totalling

2,000 metres, following a program of sampling and geophysics that located seven targets.

The first hole was collared on the La Sorpresa target in the El Pluma North area and tested a

1-km-long zone of mineralization and coincident geophysical anomaly, said Minera Andes President Allen Ambrose. The rig has since moved on to a prominent geophysical anomaly called El Pluma West.

Ambrose said the drilling will work through several other targets in and around El Pluma, averaging two or three holes per target, before ending up at the Saavedra West and Saavedra Central targets to the south.

Minera Andes controls 25,500 ha in six cateo applications on the property, situated in a remote area of northwestern Santa Cruz province.

Regional geology consists of a series of Jurassic volcanic rock packages which are exposed through erosional windows in the overlying Tertiary basalts and alluvium. Mineralization is controlled by northeast- and northwest-trending regional structures, with associated adularia-sericite alteration in quartz veins, silicified beds, stockworks and breccias. At El Pluma, mineralization appears closely associated with graben-bounding faults, while at Cerro Saavedra, high level argillic alteration is more prominent.