Balleza - La Cienega
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Multiple small historic gold mines along 7 Km long mineralized structural trend. |
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Exploration Target is low grade, open pit deposit. |
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Balleza target near dike/sediment/volcanic contact zone similar to theDolores Mine Epithermal Gold System of Minefinders. |
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Previous sampling and drilling by Hochschild indicated bulk tonnage potential - two holes drilled, only one into mineralized rhyolite-dacite dike - HMB-2 intersected 62.4m grading 0.53 gpt Au. |
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Additional step-out drilling never completed, target wide open along strike and down dip. |
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Balleza-Cienega zone mapping and sampling program planned for 2010-2011 to identify targets for Phase 1 drilling. |
The Balleza target consists of a wide breccia zone in volcanic rocks and shales at the contact of a rhyolitic to dacitic dike. Sampling in an area more than 200 m wide and 750 meters long indicates the potential for large tonnages of 0.5 to 1.5 g/t Au and 15 to 100 g/t Ag.
The Balleza-La Cienega area provided a significant portion of the historic gold-silver production from the Moris district. Multiple small mines exploited high-grade veins along structural zones several kilometers in length. The Balleza target consists of a wide zone of silicification and quartz stockworks within and adjacent to a large rhyolite to dacite dike similar to the geologic setting of the Dolores deposit of Minefinders', which is 100 kilometers to the north of Balleza. The Dolores Mine has a cutoff grade of 0.3 gpt gold and contains 153 million tonnes with a grade of 0.68 gpt gold and 28 gpt silver.
Balleza area rock chip sampling completed by Hochschild and Exmin in 2006 and 2007 collected a total of 135 samples, including silicified dike, stockwork zones, and veins, which returned very encouraging results. Seventy four of the samples were above a 0.3 gpt cutoff grade and averaged of 2.27 gpt Au. Twenty four silicified dike samples without veining averaged 1.66 gpt Au. Two continuous chip samples have been collected from the dike zone with silicification and stockwork veining. One sample was 16.5 m long and contained 1.75 gpt Au (Hochschild) and another over 15 m contains 1.715 gpt Au
(Caza). These chip samples are 180 meters apart in the same silicified dike and only sampled a small portion of the overall dike width in the sample area. The resistant silicified knob outcrop of the dike is 500 m long by 150 m wide bounded by a well defined fault zone. Car to house sized mineralized boulders with strong quartz veining cover the hill below the silicified knob and contain up to 26.6 gpt gold and 115 gpt silver. All assays completed by Hochschild, Exmin, and Caza were analyzed at the ALS Chemex labs is Hermosillo, Mexico.
Hochschild drilled two holes to the south of the silicified dike outcrops, one of which intersected a wide mineralized interval of 62.4 meters grading 0.53 g/t Au (203 ft of 0.02 opT Au) 100 meters below the outcropping dike. No follow-up drilling was ever conducted on these properties and the mineralized zones remain open along strike and down dip.
The Balleza-La Cienega structural zone extends for more than seven kilometers and has had past production with at least 14 historic workings identified in the field. More than 20 additional outcropping mineralized vein areas have been identified in addition to the historic workings.
2010-2011 Exploration Program
Caza is planning a comprehensive mapping and sampling program in the Balleza-Cienega zone in the coming months and plans to begin drilling the top priority targets in early 2011.