GOLD AND PRECIOUS METALS — Conquistador hunts for Colombian PGMs

Junior Conquistador Mines (CQL-V) is spinning off a subsidiary to acquire and explore for platinum group metals (PGMs) in Colombia.

To date, the only Conquistador property in Colombia to have yielded platinum values from a lode source is the Abejorral project, a sample from which assayed in excess of 1 oz. platinum per tonne.

An unmapped layered ultramafic complex is the likely source of the lode from which the sample was taken, Conquistador reports. Follow-up sampling is planned.

The spinoff company will explore the mapped portion of the layered ultramafic complex adjacent to the Abejorral licence.

Conquistador has focused much of its Colombian gold exploration efforts on the Marmato gold property, a joint venture with 50%-owned Colombian subsidiary Corona Goldfields.

A scoping study was recently commissioned for Marmato, the purpose of which is to outline a preliminary resource based on drilling and sampling data.

The deposit is seen as a potential open-pit, heap-leach operation.

Highlights from recent surface drilling include:

* 1.31 grams gold per tonne across 40 metres (from 250 to 290 metres) in hole MS-25;

* 3.11 grams across 52 metres (from 220 to 272 metres) in hole MS-26; * 8.49 grams across 16 metres (from 150 to 166 metres) in hole MS-27; and * 3.25 grams across 14 metres (from 212 to 226 metres) in hole MS-28.

Underground drill hole MU-10 returned several promising intersections, including:

* 2.11 grams across 14 metres (from 132 to 146 metres);

* 1.3 grams across 42 metres (from 150 to 192 metres); and

* 4.49 grams across 12 metres (from 210 to 222 metres).

The earliest known gold production from the Marmato region predates colonial times. Over the past 500 years, the region has been intermittently worked by several small-scale operations, however, tonnage and grade of mined material is not known.

Rocks exposed on surface include quartz-sericite schists and graphitic sediments along with younger basalts, serpentinites, amphibolites, greywackes, sandstones and mudstones. The most extensive units are dacite and andesite porphyries, which cover about 80% of the Marmato area and host most of the gold-mineralized veins and fracture systems.

The most predominant structural feature in the area is a

northwesterly-trending, steeply dipping, fault-fracture system that crosscuts the main mineralized areas. Within the intrusive bodies the faults show up as brittle fracture zones mineralized by quartz and sulphides.