Drilling shows continuity at Talavera Sur in Nicaragua

New drilling shows a resource shaping up at the Talavera Sur zone at the El Limon mine in northwestern Nicaragua, owned by Black Hawk Mining (BHK-T).

Black Hawk has drilled eight holes on the Talavera Sur structure, filling in a 200-metre strike extension northeast of mineralization it had encountered in earlier drilling (T.N.M., Dec. 28/98). The drilling provides strong evidence that the Talavera Sur joins another zone of mineralization, the Talavera Este Footwall.

Between the two zones — the 350-metre-long Talavera Sur and the 175-metre Footwall — Limon has another 525 metres of strike length to develop for future production.

The new drill intersections represent true widths of 2.2 to 7 metres, some of which show high gold grades. The highest grades were encountered in holes drilled 90 metres west of the Footwall zone. In one, a 3.9-metre true width assayed 35 grams gold and 19.5 grams silver per tonne; a second hole, slightly deeper, graded 23.2 grams gold and 13.8 grams silver across 3.5 metres; and a third, above the other two, showed grades of 11.1 grams gold and 15.5 grams silver across a 7-metre true width.

Two holes about 40 metres west of the limit of the Footwall zone both cut high-grade gold zones; one graded 21.1 grams gold and 9.3 grams silver per tonne over a true width of 6.3 metres, and the other, 10.1 grams gold and 12.1 grams silver across 3.4 metres.

Three other holes were drilled near the eastern limit of known Talavera Sur mineralization, and found zones 2.2-4.2 metres wide grading 3.8-13.6 grams gold, with additional silver.

A drift from the mine’s 190 Level reached the Talavera Sur vein in late February, providing initial access to the vein. Development levels of 160 and 210 metres are being cut so that miners can begin stoping later this year. Talavera Este’s Footwall zone is already partly developed, with some sections brought into the mine’s reserves and some stopes already mined.

The company has also made an initial estimate of the resource on the western 200 metres of Talavera Sur, calculating (based on a 4.1-gram cutoff grade) that there are 315,000 tonnes grading 12.8 grams per tonne. There are additional resources over the 100-metre strike length immediately to the east, and the structure is open both downdip and along strike to the west.

Metallurgical tests have shown recoveries averaging 92% from cyanide leaching of ground material from Talavera Sur.

About 1,000 metres east of Talavera Este, at the Veta Nueva vein, surface drilling is filling in an earlier drill pattern. There, Black Hawk is investigating a vein system that strikes eastward and dips 60-65 to the north. Drill holes in the current campaign encountered erratic gold grades, which ranged from a fraction of a gram per tonne to 125 grams gold, and from non-detectable to 98.8 grams silver. The erratic gold distribution suggests that Veta Nueva’s resource estimate will be lower than Black Hawk had expected.

Black Hawk intends to drill infill holes on Talavera Sur and test the western extension of the vein before making another resource estimate. There will also be some drilling on deeper extensions of the Santa Emilia Oeste zone, northwest of the Veta Nueva.