Vancouver — Surface trenching by
Bear Creek can earn up to a 70% interest in the 23-sq.-km property from
Five trenches provided a weighted average of 103 grams silver per tonne over a combined length of 562 metres. Each trench contains higher-grade segments of up to 186 grams over 48 metres. Most of the trenches ended in mineralization.
The newly uncovered silver zone is 112 metres wide and open in all directions, and 3 km southeast of a separate zone of high-grade gold mineralization in outcrop. In the gold zone, trenching and chip sampling over 2-metre intervals returned 52 metres grading 0.57 gram gold, including 8 metres of 1.2 grams gold. Another trench yielded 2.9 grams gold over 58 metres, including 6.7 grams gold over 20 metres.
“These results exceed our expectations both for the silver-rich portion of the district and the confirmation of significant gold mineralization,” says Bear Creek President Andrew Swarthout.
The gold mineralization occurs in veins hosted by argillic-altered volcanics. The presence of stibnite would seem to indicate a high-level epithermal system at Corani, giving added depth potential to the 2-by-5-km target area defined by alteration on surface.
“We are in the high levels of an epithermal system that has all the earmarks of being large, and which is possibly driven by a copper porphyry system at depth,” says Swarthout.
Drilling in the 1990s outlined mineralization grading 2-5 grams gold at depth.
Bear Creek has budgeted US$350,000 for exploration, including diamond drilling to test the depth extent of the gold and silver zones.
Quartz diorites and andesitic intrusions on surface grade up to 0.2% copper, and these may represent a feeder system roughly 500 metres below surface, says Swarthout.
For the time being, however, Bear Creek has set its sights on the property’s precious metal potential. Crews continue to trench, map and sample along the strike extensions of the silver and gold zones in an effort to track the mineralization over 1 km on surface.
Meanwhile, the company has several other gold-silver projects on the go in southeastern Peru — among them, Santa Ana, which is being explored for silver, lead, zinc and barite. The alteration zone measures 2.8 by 0.6 km on surface and is 80 metres thick.
At the same time, Bear Creek has arranged to acquire the regional geochemical and geological data of
Bear Creek can acquire any prospects in the area in exchange for shares plus warrants. AngloGold can back-in for a 65% interest in any such prospect by funding a feasibility study.
The junior already has an agreement in place for the Pichacani Norte gold-silver property.
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