More than halfway through an 8,500-metre drilling campaign,
Drilling at Galena Hill has intersected a near-surface, tabular zone of silver-lead mineralization in pyritic mudstone, and underlying hydrothermally altered and brecciated volcanic rocks. The mineralized zone is at least 250 metres wide and extends from surface to a depth of 175 metres.
Assay results to date have been reported for six holes, with holes 3 to 5 (previously announced Dec. 17 and Jan. 6) and hole 12 collared along the same section (51160E), and holes 14 and 13 representing successive step-outs along strike to the northwest. Hole 14 stepped out 160 metres along strike of section 51160E and intersected 115.1 metres averaging 454 grams silver per tonne (or 13.2 oz.), 5.26% lead, 0.5% zinc and 0.08% copper in a 70-degree angle hole. A bonanza-grade section averaging 1,421 grams (41.5 oz.) silver, 5.24% lead, 0.5% zinc and 0.24% copper across 18 metres spans the contact between the pyritic sediments and replacement-style galena matrix breccias. This hole is interpreted to have either cut, or is near, a feeder zone.
Hole 13 stepped out a further 125 metres to the northwest beyond the strong time-domain, pole-dipole IP anomaly and was drilled just off the edge of a weaker gradient chargeability anomaly. The hole intersected weakly mineralized breccia averaging 223 grams (6.5 oz.) silver, 0.56% lead and 0.16% copper across 44.7 metres at minus 45 degrees. The company is encouraged that the hole encountered good silver mineralization despite low sulphide concentrations. The gradient IP anomaly shows a large 1,600-by-1,300-metre area of anomalous chargeability extending from Galena Hill to Navidad Hill, and continuing to the southeast for more than 1 km under valley cover.
The Navidad project has been touted by company geologists as a sub-aqueous epithermal system, with a possible stratiform massive sulphide source. Further evidence of stratigraphically-controlled mineralization was found in hole 12, which provided the first real sniff of zinc mineralization in the pyritic layered mudstone. The base of the mudstone unit assayed 41.6 grams silver, 8.01% lead and 2.56% zinc over 9 metres in hole 12, which was collared 80 metres southwest of hole 3 (175 metres of 26 grams silver and 1.35% lead). The volcanic breccias immediately underlying the mudstones returned a higher-grade 7.7-metre section of 70.8 grams silver, 9.6% lead and 0.54% zinc. Combined, the two sections averaged 41.8 metres of 35.5 grams silver, 4.46% lead and 0.68% zinc.
Navidad is a grassroots discovery that IMA’s geologists made more than a year ago in Chubut province. Since drilling began in early December, the company has completed more than 27 holes, for which assays have been reported from the first 14 holes. IMA is currently focused on systematically drill testing the 1.1-km-long chargeability anomaly between the Galena and Navidad Hills on section lines spaced 200 metres apart, with the intention of demonstrating the size potential of the project.
IMA has 36.6 million shares outstanding or 45 million fully diluted, with a treasury of $4.5 million.
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