The Company is also pleased to announce that 1). Public participation meetings and environmental studies at Belen have progressed well and final submission of the Declaracion de Impacto Ambiental (“DIA”) will be made shortly and 2) Social licence permissions for the first time have been received across a broad area of Valiente, including the Previsto target area, and initial field work has commenced.
Highlights:
The first exploration work reported from the Divisoria area has identified a zoned copper porphyry target over a 2,000 m by 500 m area.
- Discovery of abundant high-grade hydrothermal zinc-lead-silver breccias and quartz-pyrite veins where values up to 8.0 m @ 3.3% Zn including 0.5 m 33.4 % Zn from outcrop channel sampling.
- These veins are interpreted to represent a distal polymetallic veins district peripheral to a porphyry core.
- The host rock to the base metal veins is a fine-grained dioritic porphyry intrusion with moderate to strong propylitic alteration, typically associated in the outer margins of a porphyry system.
- Field work for the DIA or Environmental Impact Statement at Belen is complete with archaeological and environmental data collected and community participation meetings complete. Broad support was received. Submittal for approval to the General Directorate of Mining Environmental Affairs of the Ministry of Energy and Mines is anticipated by the end of November 2023.
- Initial social licence permissions to the Previsto area have been received allowing exploration access to this highly prospective alkalic Cu-Au porphyry target area.
“Importantly social licencing has advanced positively with the completion of environmental and social permitting at Belen, now ready for submittal to authorities for approvals, together with first exploration access granted to the highly prospective Previsto porphyry area where multiple porphyry centres have been discovered within an area of 15 km by 7 km."
Geological Discussion
During the last months surface exploration has shifted to expanding into new areas of the 1,686 sq km large Valiente project. Work has focused 10 km east of the Belen area where the company has previously reported a discovery of two outcropping porphyry targets (Figures 1 and 2).
In the new area, called Divisoria, the company identified a 2,000 m by 500 m area with hydrothermal base metal breccias and veins. The breccias are hosted by a fine-grained porphyry intrusion of diorite composition with propylitic alteration of moderate to strong intensity. Divisoria is partly covered by a 50 m to 100 m thick sequence of Paleogene red beds (Fig 2).
The area with strongest brecciation and veining is exposed for about 300 m width before it disappears under cover. It hosts frequent N-S trending veins of quartz pyrite and quartz pyrite galena-sphalerite. Locally very high-grade zinc zones have been analysed with values up to 33.4% Zn (Figure 3). All veins are younger than the porphyritic country rock and appear to overprint the hydrothermal breccias. Representative photos are shown in Figure 4 and 5. Assay results from channel and panel sampled outcrops are summarized in Table 1 below:
Further information is attached.
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