High grade gold zone increases underground potential at Penasquito

Vancouver – The discovery of a substantial gold zone containing visible gold starting at a depth of 250 metres, is increasing the prospects for an underground mine in conjunction with the planned open pit on Western Silver’s (WTC-T) wholly-owned Penasquito property in Mexico. The project’s main focus at the prefeasibility stage was on the Chile Colorado deposit which has significant economic potential on its own.

The Penasquito property covers some 390 square km in northeastern Zacatecas state, some 27 km west of the town of Concepcon del Oro.

Recent drilling at the Penasco zone about 1.5 km northwest of the Chile Colorado deposit, confirmed a significant high-grade gold zone which had initially been outlined by drilling in May. Six holes drilled north and south of WC-112 which contained free gold and gold-silver tellurides, have outlined the gold-silver zone with wide intercepts of plus-1 gram gold, and narrower intervals of plus-10 gram gold per tonne over at least 400 metres in a north-south direction and to a depth of 400 metres. The zone could extend up to 300 metres east-westerly.

One of the recent holes, WC-166, collared 250 metres north of WC-112, intersected gold mineralization at 424 metres to 526 metres at the breccia contact. Within this interval are 62 metres averaging 0.82 gram gold, 41 grams silver, 0.49% lead and 0.79% zinc; 2 metres containing native gold and argentite assaying 536 grams gold and 8,280 grams silver, 4.27% lead and 8.51% zinc; followed by a 24-metre interval of 5.78 grams gold, 161 grams silver, 1.82% lead and 4.98% zinc.

Drilling at Penasco is tesing the vertical and lateral extent of the high-grade gold at a spacing of 50 metres east-westerly and 100 metres north-south. Four rigs have been turning on the Penasco zone since August 24 to outline the resource there.

Penasco, was not included in the independent pre-feasibility study done on the property earlier this year, however, the company is planning to include it within the full feasibility study to be released next year.