EXPLORATION ’95 — Majors eye gold, copper properties of

During the past several months, Peruvian Gold’s (VSE) team of geologists has carried out regional and detailed studies which identified four gold-copper porphyry targets within the company’s wholly owned ground in the Cora Cora and Palpa districts of southern Peru.

The junior released the results of this work to a number of major companies, and as a result, hopes to form joint ventures to explore these prospects further.

Two of the targets, Agua Verde and Zapanyoque, are within the 4,000-hectare Agua Verde claims. Both are granodiorite plugs and form part of a large, elliptical, intrusive structure, measuring about 8 by 6 km, in Cretaceous sedimentary (mostly limestone) and volcanic rocks.

The Agua Verde plug is ellipsoidal with a peripheral skarn which was mined underground for several years at a rate of about 200 tonnes per day, with a grade which is believed to have exceeded 3% copper.

Last November, Peruvian Gold reported results from underground channel sampling, along both the skarn and intrusive contacts. On the 300 level, the skarn averaged 62 metres of 1.88% copper plus 0.11 grams gold per tonne, and the intrusive averaged 84 metres of 0.41% copper plus 0.13 grams gold. On the 400 level, the skarn graded 159 metres of 1.62% copper plus 0.12 grams gold, and the intrusive graded 194 metres of 0.41% copper plus 0.07 grams gold. Surface sampling of outcrops also took place at that time, with encouraging results.

The Zapanyoque intrusion is about 4 km east of the Agua Verde intrusion, and within the same intrusive structure. It is also ellipsoidal. The dominant rock type is porphyritic dacite, although the company noted that it appears differentiated in part ranging from a hornblende to a quartz-rich dacite. Locally, areas of brecciation and silicification were recognized and mapped. The intrusion is intersected by gossanous quartz breccia veins which extend for up to 300 metres. Recent chip samples returned values of up to 0.97 grams gold, 0.69% copper and 785 parts per million arsenic. The perimeter of the intrusion was also tested, with the best values being 0.36% copper plus 0.38 grams gold.

The third target is on the Pisacalla claims (1,100 hectares), situated 3 km south of Agua Verde. These claims cover an elongated intrusion (3 km long and up to 550 metres wide) which is dominantly comprised of granodiorite, although both leucocratic and melanocratic phases were recorded. The target is described as having areas of intense quartz-limonite stockworking and veins. The veins bear free gold (significant local alluvial workings are in the area), and three hard-rock vein deposits are within, and adjacent to, the intrusion.

Mining has taken place on these veins over widths ranging from 0.45 to 1.5 metres. Chip samples were taken to test the veins, which returned values ranging from 10.8 to 34.9 grams gold. Lower values of 0.02 and 0.34 grams were reported from the stockwork.

The fourth target is on the Lara claims (1,800 hectares), situated 400 km south of Lima, and 40 km northeast of Palpa on the Pan American Highway. The Lara prospect is within intrusive rocks of the coastal batholith where diorite has been intruded by Tertiary stocks of red granite, andesite dykes and dacite dykes (parts of the intrusive are covered by agglomerates and tuffs).

The target area measures 2 km east-west by 1 km north-south, in which a leached cap has been mapped. Copper mineralization occurs as malachite and chrysocolla, with lesser amounts of tenorite in fractures, stockworks and minor disseminations. A pyrite halo was also mapped, along a gully on the western edge of the copper mineralization.

Based on the results of geological mapping and sampling, Peruvian Gold believes this prospect has the potential to host an economically viable porphyry copper deposit.