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To: Goose94 who wrote (895)4/8/2013 12:23:29 PM
From: Goose94Respond to of 203026
 
A better way to prospect for mining profits

Anyone who has invested in junior miners knows what a tease Mother Nature can be.

A hot drill result will excite investors and seduce the market into thinking that a company has discovered the next bonanza. Then – far more often than not – further work shows the discovery to suffer from what geologist Brent Cook calls a fatal flaw: insufficient size, low ore grades or any number of other problems that ultimately render the find uneconomic to mine.

“The basic fact of mineral exploration is the odds of success are really, really low,” says Mr. Cook, co-author of the newsletter Exploration Insights.

Investors who are eager to tilt the odds in their favour may want to look at a different way of getting involved in the early stages of finding a mine. Firms known as prospect generators specialize in sniffing out promising grassroots prospects. Their goal is to partner with larger mining companies that can bear the financial brunt of testing these potential finds to identify the tiny percentage that turn out to be economic to mine. Both partners then share the bounty.

Invest in a handful of reputable prospect generators and you get a diversified portfolio of projects. “With six to 10 prospect generators, you can have exposure to 50 to 100 projects over several years which can dramatically increase your odds of success,” says Adrian Day, CEO of Adrian Day Asset Management and author of Investing in Resources.

Why don’t mining firms do the grassroots exploration work themselves? Many miners focus their exploration efforts on expanding around existing mines. Working with a prospect generator offers them a chance to preview a large range of possible targets in regions they may not know well and then invest in the best opportunities.

Ideally, “it’s a symbiotic relationship between a company whose core expertise is exploration feeding a company whose core expertise is mining,” says Paul van Eeden, president of privately held Cranberry Capital Inc. and a director of prospect generating firms Miranda Gold Corp. and Evrim Resources Corp.

The occasional bonanza can more than compensate for the long odds of success. After prospect generator Virginia Mines Inc. discovered the rich Éléonore deposit in Quebec, it was able to sell the deposit to giant Goldcorp Inc. in 2006 for $420-million (U.S.) worth of Goldcorp shares and a rich royalty.

Investing in prospect generators requires a different approach than putting money into a conventional junior explorer, says Mr. Cook, who invests in both types of companies. With conventional explorers, you need to assess the geology of a specific site, stay on top of every drill result and keep an eye out for problems.

“I spend all my time looking for the fatal flaw,” he says. “If you know 95 per cent of the time the stock is going to go down, you want to find that fatal flaw as soon as you can and get out before the crowd.”

When it comes to prospect generators, you aren’t betting on a particular find, but rather on the ability of the firm’s team of geologists to turn up a stream of interesting projects. Most prospect generators concentrate on “greenfields” opportunities away from existing mines. This is a high-risk endeavour, but because a prospect generator has to finance only the relatively inexpensive work of exploring and testing a site for drilling potential, it doesn’t chew up money at anywhere near the rate as the miner that does the drilling. If several projects fizzle, that need not be a disaster.

This allows average investors to adopt more of a buy-and-hold approach, Mr. Day says. Another attraction: Non-geologists can see how a prospect generator is doing simply by checking on how successful it has been in enlisting joint venture partners.

Those partners often include many of the world’s leading mining companies and their scrutiny of potential projects is rigorous, Mr. van Eeden says. “You have to persuade their geologists that they have to go get financing within their company for your project instead of taking their budget and spending it on their own projects.”

Project generator stocks offer less downside than conventional junior miners, while maintaining a good portion of the upside, Mr. Cook says. “Their bad isn’t that bad,” he explains. “If their partner drills a project and it turns out to be not that great, it didn’t cost these guys a dime.” On the other hand, if a project does well, the payoff can be sizable. “You’re not going to get a ten-bagger [a stock that goes up 10 times],” he says. “But I’ll take four three-baggers any day.”

Prospect generators typically have small teams of geologists who perform relatively low-cost geochemical, geophysical and geological tests to identify promising targets. The prospect generator may drill a few holes to test a concept, but generally looks for a well-funded partner to shoulder the big bucks of drilling.

If the project continues to yield encouraging drill results, the joint venture partner accumulates a hefty bill, but typically ends up with a 51- to 75-per-cent stake of the project, leaving the prospect generator with a minority stake. As the resource becomes better defined, the prospect generator looks for an opportune time to sell, typically to the mining company partner.

But doing this well is not easy. Few prospect generators are able to combine geological expertise with the business savvy needed to manage partner relationships, Mr. van Eeden says.

Do your own research before investing in any of them. (Disclosure: I own shares in several, as identified in the footnotes.) And don’t go overboard. A portfolio of prospects generates more shots at success, but prospect generators can explore for years without finding anything economic.

Mr. van Eeden says to only invest money you can afford to lose. “Just because you’re dealing with prospect generators doesn’t take the risk away. It’s still a risky business.”



To: Goose94 who wrote (895)6/24/2013 10:04:37 AM
From: Goose94Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 203026
 
Prospero Silver (PSL-V) acquires Pachuca SE project in Mexico

Jne 24, 2013 - News Release

Prospero Silver Corp. has acquired, by staking, the 7,256-hectare Pachuca SE project located 24 kilometres southeast along strike of the historic veins of the Pachuca-Real del Monte mining district. This new project acquisition is part of a systematic exploration program in the Mexican Altiplano and reflects Prospero's strategy of creating value as a Mexico-focused project generator. Pachuca SE will be added to the company's portfolio of 100-per-cent-owned projects available for joint venture. Pachuca SE is located within the same regional-scale sequence of volcanic rocks of predominant intermediate composition (The Pachuca Group) which hosts the historic Pachuca-Real del Monte mining district (Pachuca Mine) (Geyne et. al., 1963: Consejo de Recursos Minerales No Renovables Publication 5E, 203 p). The Pachuca Mine represents the second largest epithermal deposit in Mexico with total production estimated in the order of 80 M tons with an average grade of 500 g/t Ag, and 2.5 g/t Au (Albinson et. al., 2001: SEG Special Publication Series No. 8, p. 1-32).

The Pachuca SE geology is typical of a high level epithermal environment with the following characteristics:

  • Location along strike of one of the world's largest epithermal precious metal deposits;
  • Attractive gold and silver high level geochemistry when compared to the geochemical signatures of the Vizcaina structure above the Pachuca Mine;
  • A similar assemblage of clay minerals in the argillic alteration cap of both systems;
  • Association with a more felsic volcanic pile than the Pachuca-Real del Monte host rocks;
  • An erosional window that exposes several structures for a length of 5km across the system.


The Company has completed detailed mapping, semi-systematic sampling and clay mineral analysis (both SWIR and XRD) on the property within an area of 5km x 2km where high level epithermalism is exposed. This is within a north-northwest oriented and elongated erosional window of the Pachuca Group which is otherwise covered by post-hydrothermalism cinder-cone volcanism of the younger basalts of the Neovolcanic series.

GEOLOGY.

The Pachuca Group in the area of the historic Pachuca Mine consists predominantly of a thick pile of andesitic volcanics. In the Pachuca SE area the volcanic pile is more felsic in composition consisting primarily of dacite tuffs, pyroclasitic flows and lapilli tuffs, and overlying rhyolite ignimbrites. In the northern sector of the Pachuca SE project both dacite plugs and dikes intrude the volcanics and in the southern Cerro Varal sector, a vertically banded commonly spherulitic rhyolite dike/dome phase intrudes the rhyolite ignimbrites (Figure 2).

Northwest and east-west striking structures and alteration zones have been mapped and sampled where exposed in outcrop. These occur in shallow mines, in open cuts of road building material and in open pits which are actively being mined for clay. The strike length of the structures and alteration zones, recognized to date, range from 600m to 2,200m. Some may be significantly longer in that they are covered by the younger volcanics both to the east and west (Figure 2). The structures dip both to the north and south and tilt the host rocks predominately to the north.

Hydrothermal alteration and silica veining is closely associated with the structures. Illite-inter-stratified illite/smecitite-pyrite dominated alteration is associated with the northern and central sector of the system, whereas in the Cerro Varal southern sector the alteration is characterized by alunite-kaolinite-dickite and silica invasion.

The Cerro Varal is the longest east-west striking structure exposed in the project area (2.2km) and outcrops as vertically oriented reefs up to 20m wide. The zoning of alteration suggests a deeper geologic level is exposed in the north and middle sectors of the project area, whereas the top of the system with acid-sulfate alteration occurs along the crest of Cerro Varal.

A total of 134 rock-chip samples have been obtained from the Pachuca SE project. The highest precious metal and zinc geochemistry occurs in the northern sector with anomalous gold assays in the 0.1 to 0.61 ppm range, silver assays in the 1.0 to 2.92 ppm range, and zinc assays of 100 to 5,290 ppm. These values coincide with the presence of narrow coarse crystalline quartz and calcite veins and iron oxides closely associated with the mapped structures. In the Cerro Varal area the intrusive rhyolite hosts numerous pyrite-rich veins along an exposed length of 900m. The veins consist of cryptocrystalline quartz carrying anomalous values of barium (up to 3780 ppm), molybdenum (up to 561 ppm), and arsenic (up to 209 ppm), exhibit dickite alteration in the rhyolite intrusive wallrocks, and occur immediately below the cap of advanced argillic alteration (alunite-kaolinite). Numerous workings and shafts up to 30m deep were developed by the old timers along the pyrite-silica rich veins.

Comparison with Pachuca's high level alteration

Rock-chip sampling (11 samples) of the Vizcaina structure above the old Pachuca Mine and along road cut exposures located 100-200m above known orebodies assayed only at the limit of detection for gold (less than 0.002 ppm) and silver (less than 0.02 ppm), and weak zinc anomalies (less than 144 ppm), from scarce crystalline quartz and calcite veinlets within a halo of illite-pyrite alteration. The structural, geochemical and hydrothermal alteration similarity of the Pachuca SE system with the high level epithermal environment that overlies the Pachuca Mine veins, was likely recognized by the Pachuca-Real del Monte operators over a hundred years back, in that they developed several levels over a hundred meters in length and shafts over 30m deep along the Pachuca SE structures, most likely expecting to find the top or apex of orebodies.

Not uncommonly, important epithermal precious metal deposits in Mexico are closely time-related with emplacement of domes of felsic composition, or include significant volumes of felsic volcanic rocks in the pre-mineral phases of volcanism (rhyolites to dacites). Examples include:

  • The Guanajuato district - the Chichindaro felsic dome phase,
  • Fresnillo - the Cerro Christo and Linares (Juanicipio) rhyolites,
  • Bacis (Durango) - a pre-vein dacitic volcanic pile and a felsic dome phase,
  • Cienega (Durango) - a felsic dome phase,
  • Tayoltita - thick sections of rhyolites in the host rocks;
  • Pachuca itself which exhibits banded pre-vein rhyolite dikes.


Tawn Albinson, M.Sc., President of the Company, is a Qualified Person, as defined in NI 43-101, and is responsible for the technical content of this press release. The samples were analyzed by ALS Chemex, by the following methods, gold by Au-ICP21 with a lower limit of detection of 0.001 ppm; silver (with a lower limit of detection of 0.02 ppm) by multielemental ME-MS61, and mercury by Hg-CV41.

We seek Safe Harbor.