Pediment closes Pitalla purchase

Following approval by the TSX Venture Exchange, Vancouver-based Pediment Exploration (PEZ-V) has completed its takeover of Mexican company Minera Pitalla, which controls a portfolio of mineral properties in western Sonora state and in Baja California Sur.

Pediment will issue 5.4 million shares to the shareholders of Pitalla’s Nevada-based parent, El Dragon Minerals, with 2.8 million shares subject to a 3-year hold. Discovery of more than 1 million oz. gold or gold-equivalent on no more than three Pitalla properties, with at least half of that amount on a single property, qualifies the vendor for a 2.5-million-share bonus payment. Pediment also issued shares to clear the debts of its predecessor company, Skinny Technologies, and consolidated its capital on a 15-for-1 basis.

Pitalla’s properties, assembled by a group of former Phelps Dodge (PD-N) employees, include the Daniel, Pitalla, Diana and Martha properties, all near Caborca, Sonora state; the Texson property 150 km northwest of Hermosillo; and the Las Colinas property in Baja California Sur.

Daniel, the most advanced of the properties, hosts epithermal gold and silver veins in felsic volcanic rocks, and three former mines, Coronela, Sierrita and Morita, all of which exploited short high-grade vein structures. The other three properties near Caborca all have skarn-type copper-gold-silver mineralization. There is very little documented exploration on any of the properties.

At Texson, a silicified ridge hosts narrow north-striking veins with mainly silver mineralization, in gneisses and granitic rocks.

Las Colinas, about 40 km southeast of La Paz in Baja Sur, was the object of an exploration and resource-drilling program by Echo Bay Mines in the mid-1990s. Before National Instrument 43-101 came into force, Echo Bay calculated a resource from 31 reverse-circulation drill holes that amounted to 10.6 million tonnes at 1 gram gold per tonne, about 85% of which is on the Las Colinas property.

The mineralization at Las Colinas is in west-dipping shear zones that cut through a Mesozoic-aged intrusive complex and the gneiss and schist country rocks. The shear zones hold disseminated and veinlet-style sulphides with gold. The main widths — 1 metre to 50 metres across — are developed where the steep shears intersect low-angle thrust faults.

The mineralization is open downdip and along both strike directions, although the southern extension is on another concession.