LATIN AMERICA — General Minerals drills Bolivian deposit

Having outlined extensive manto-style mineralization, General Minerals (GNM-T) is preparing to begin development drilling on the Atocha silver property in west-central Bolivia.

Earlier in the year, General Minerals began drifting a tunnel underneath and parallel to the northerly trending, westerly dipping Manto Cloruro in the main Carmen zone.

The manto was intersected in five places over a strike length exceeding 200 metres and a vertical extent of 70 metres. One such intersection came from the 140W crosscut, where channel sampling returned 3,412 grams silver per tonne over a true thickness of 3 metres. The 100W crosscut yielded two channel samples: 2.9 metres grading 354 grams silver per tonne and 3 metres of 215 grams. The northernmost manto intersection averaged 3.1 metres of 1,532 grams per tonne.

Mineralization on the Manto Cloruro remains open to the north and south along strike, as well as at depth.

General Minerals plans to have spent US$500,000 on exploration (including drilling) in the second half of 1999.

Flotation tests conducted by Lakefield Research in Santiago, Chile, indicate silver recoveries of more than 90% from concentrates, whereas leach tests indicate recoveries of 87-95%.

However, because of the high grade of the material, General Minerals is considering shipping ore directly to local refineries in the area to generate cash flow for feasibility work.

The mantos at Atocha consist of mineralized sandstone beds in Jurassic sediments. Silver mineralization typically occurs as acanthite and polybasite.

Vein mineralization, though less continuous than the mantos, is also common. Veins, including the east-westerly trending Santa Isabel, contain copper and gold in tetrahedrite, chalcopyrite with minor sphalerite.

A decline into the Santa Isabel vein returned two channel samples averaging 0.5 metre grading 3,832 grams silver.

General Minerals completed 33 metres of underground development at the Condor zone, 1 km north of the Carmen zone, where it also encountered manto mineralization. Channel samples from Condor include a 2.2-metre thickness of 773 grams silver per tonne, and 1.5 metres of 1,803 grams.

Atocha is in the Cochabamba department of Bolivia, 80 km east of Oruro. Workings there date back to Spanish colonial times.

The company controls 11,300 ha, covering a 27-km strike length of folded and thrusted sandstone beds within 10 km of a railroad.