News on drilling program:
Minefinders begins drilling program at Northern Sonora
Minefinders Corp Ltd MFL
Shares issued 28,566,932 May 12 close $8.75
Tue 13 May 2003 News Release
Mr. Mark Bailey reports
DRILLING TO BEGIN ON MINEFINDERS NORTHERN SONORA PROPERTIES
Minefinders has incepted a multitarget drilling program within the
company's 100-per-cent-owned Northern Sonora property holdings.
The proposed drilling will test five separate projects located within the
company's Northern Sonora concessions. The program will involve resource
expansion at the La Bolsa project, follow-up and first-time drill testing
of five zones at the El Malacate project, and first-time drill testing of
the La Dura, Alcaparroso and Agua Caliente projects. A total of
$1.7-million has been budgeted for the completion of 100 to 125 drill
holes.
The program will begin at El Malacate where drill roads and permitting are
in place, and move west to La Dura and La Bolsa. Initially a buggy-mounted
reverse-circulation rig will be used for testing of the El Malacate and La
Dura projects. As the program moves to La Bolsa, a core rig will be added
to assist with infill drilling of the existing resource and exploration
expansion. An additional truck-mounted reverse-circulation rig will be used
for drilling at the Alcaparroso and Agua Caliente projects. Layne de
Mexico, SA de CV has been contracted to complete the proposed drilling.
Permitting is currently being finalized for several projects with road
construction and drilling scheduled to begin the middle of May.
Following is a brief description of each of the five projects slated for
drill testing during the current program.
La Bolsa
Additional drilling at the La Bolsa project will attempt to expand the
current resource of 208,000 ounces of gold and 2.1 million ounces of silver
defined by the 77 drill holes completed thus far. The gold-silver
mineralized low-angle structure at La Bolsa contains seven million tons at
an average grade of one gram per tonne gold and 10 g/t silver at a 0.4 g/t
cutoff. Drilling in 1998 included intercepts of 3.3 metres averaging 8.6
g/t gold and 96 g/t silver, and 4.3 metres averaging 10.4 g/t gold and 43
g/t silver, suggesting the presence of high-grade feeders concealed below
the low-angle zone. The proposed 60-hole to 80-hole program will test the
presence of these feeders as well as extensions of the low-angle
mineralized zone to the south and east.
El Malacate
Drilling at the El Malacate project will focus on expanding mineralization
intersected during the 2002 first-phase drilling program as well as
targeting several untested systems. Nine widely spaced drill holes were
completed on the El Malacate project in 2002, all of which encountered wide
zones of anomalous gold mineralization.
The Ahumada mineralized system saw the bulk of drilling in 2002 with
individual five-foot intercepts grading up to 1.7 g/t gold. The proposed
2003 drilling will follow up these mineralized zones along strike, down dip
and where they continue under postmineral cover. Recent mapping and
interpretation of areas of strong argillic alteration and concealed
structural intersections suggest a greater potential at depth and under
cover.
Drilling at Bordo Blanco will focus on the untested 1,300-metre-long
central portion of the zone. In this area the anomalous system narrows to
80-metre to 100-metre width but displays much stronger structural
preparation, stockwork vein development and pervasive alteration. Drilling
in 2002 was limited to testing the east and west ends of this long
structural zone, more than 1,000 metres apart.
The El Ruidito target contains gold-bearing calcite-quartz veins, up to 15
metres in width that were not tested during the 2002 drill program. The
2003 program will test the vein at varying depths from several sites along
the 600-metre strike length. Strongly banded quartz-calcite veining,
calcite replacement textures and assays up to 9.3 g/t gold from quartz vein
material indicate the potential for a high-grade gold deposit at depth.
Cerro Palomino is a mineralized fossil hot-spring system that contains
anomalous levels of gold and associated trace elements in silica sinter,
and epithermal alteration exposed at the surface over 2,000 metres of
strike length. Drilling will target the 100-metre-wide central and
southeast portion of the zone where recent sampling has returned gold
values up to 1.7 g/t over five-metre widths.
La Dura
Drilling will test a high-grade silver mineralized shear system with
overall strike length of greater than 600 metres and widths up to 20
metres, and silver grades that range up to 200 to more than 1,400 g/t (six
to 42 ounces per ton Ag). Drilling will test the vein system at several
depths below the shallow historical workings.
Agua Caliente
Agua Caliente is a porphyry-related gold system extending for more than
1,500 metres along strike and 500 metres in width, with individual rock
chip channel samples assaying up to 3.8 g/t gold. Drilling will target
portions of the system where higher gold grades were identified in the
surface rock chip grid.
Alcaparroso
Alcaparroso is a porphyry-related copper-gold system with a core
geochemical, geophysical and alteration anomaly covering an area greater
than 1,000 metres by 500 metres. Assay results in the target area include
up to 0.73 per cent copper with gold values to over 1.2 g/t and highly
anomalous molybdenum with other base metals. The overall geophysical
anomaly associated with this system extends over an area of more than three
kilometres in length by one kilometre in width. Drilling will test the
extent of copper enrichment and help define alteration zoning.
This drill program will require several months to complete and results will
be reported on a continuing basis.
All samples will be collected and transported from the site for assay by
ALS-Chemex Labs of Vancouver, B.C., and Inspectorate Labs of Reno, Nev.
Blanks and standards will be inserted into the sample stream for quality
control, and a second sample split maintained on site for check assay and
metallurgical testing. Mark H. Bailey, MSc, PGeo, a qualified person as
defined by National Instrument 43-101, supervised the preparation of the
technical information in this release.
WARNING: The company relies upon litigation protection for
"forward-looking" statements. |
