LATIN AMERICA — Gen. Minerals to drill Chilean copper prospect

As summer weather returns to central Chile and the snow retreats from the mountains, General Minerals (GNM-T) is preparing to resume exploration of the Escalones copper-gold prospect.

Beginning in November, an induced-polarization survey will be conducted, with drilling scheduled to follow.

The property is perched at 3,400 to 4,000 metres above sea level, and no work has been conducted there since May, when the snows came.

“We hope to drive into the area as soon as possible,” says President Ralph Fitch. ” If we can get a bulldozer up to clear the roads, we’ll be able to start the geophysics early. There could be as much as 5 metres of snow up there now.”

To test anomalies detected in the geophysical surveys, the company plans to drill 10 to 20 core holes.

Fitch says widespread surface mineralization suggests that Escalones could be a sizable copper-molybdenum porphyry deposit. He adds that the property contains potential for copper-gold skarns, as well.

Surface sampling has enabled General Minerals to identify a large zone of hydrothermal alteration with coincident oxide copper mineralization. The zone measures 1,500 by 2,000 metres.

Trenching across this zone returned a 60-metre interval grading 1.2% copper, and a 20-metre interval of 2% copper. The trenches cut a skarn body, which hosts feldspar porphyry dykes and hydrothermal breccias, which intrude into limestone. Mineralization is concentrated along a north-trending fracture zone, the width of which ranges from 30 to 50 metres.

About 1 km to the east, at the Escalones Alto area, channel sampling returned 24 metres grading 1.15% copper and 0.2 gram gold per tonne. Escalones Alto contains copper values in garnet, as well as magnetite skarns that crop out over a length of 1 km.

In all, the company has completed 288 channel samples, the average grade of which is 0.31% copper.

Fitch believes the area between Escalones Bajo and Alto represents a potential copper-molybdenum porphyry. A bulldozer cut in this area exposed altered intrusive rock, which the company used for radiometric age-dating.

Supergene minerals present include malachite, azurite, chrysocolla, cuprite and native copper.

Company geologists also have encountered additional mineralization 1 km east of the Alto zone.

General Minerals is the first company, since the 1920s, to explore the property, which comprises 69 sq. km about 100 km southeast of Santiago.