Spectacular silver and gold grades in two drill intersections have tripled the price of shares in
The assays, from two diamond drill holes at the Veta Martha prospect at the Bacon gold property in Santa Cruz province, Argentina, were described by the company as “unprecedented in modern times,” and came from bonanza zones in a mineralized shoot on the Martha vein previously defined by reverse-circulation (RC) drilling. The two holes were drilled into the middle of the shoot.
The best intersection was in hole 28, where 5.1 metres of core graded an average of 123,547 grams silver per tonne, or 12.35% silver. Gold grades over the same core length averaged 197.7 grams per tonne, or slightly more than 6 oz. per ton. A 1.1-metre section of that 5.1-metre interval graded 206,642 grams silver per tonne, or 20.66%.
Another diamond drill hole, No. 27, returned similar bonanza grades over an 11.9-metre interval that averaged 14,974 grams silver and 17.2 grams gold per tonne. That core length included a 1.9-metre interval that graded 58,483 grams silver and 71.7 grams gold.
Both holes were drilled vertically and struck the bonanza mineralization at shallow depths — 10.7 metres in hole 28 and 6.4 metres in hole 27. The vein is known to dip at an angle of about 65-70, indicating that the mineralized zones have a true thickness around 35% of the vertical core length.
The drill holes are the culmination of a 69-hole drilling program at Veta Martha, which tested a 45-metre strike length of the vein. A total of 67 shallow RC holes formed a tight grid pattern in the area being tested.
The RC holes were the first to indicate bonanza-style silver mineralization, with results that included a 4-metre intersection grading 44,458 grams silver and 33.8 grams gold per tonne, 2.5 metres grading 31,183 grams silver and 20.6 grams gold, and 4.5 metres grading 20,778 grams silver and 13.8 grams gold.
Of the 69 drill holes, at least 39 intersected mineralized zones with grades greater than 1,000 grams silver per tonne. The typical true thickness of the vein has varied, but it is generally around 5 metres. No resource has been calculated for the drilled area yet.
Veta Martha is a quartz vein system in rhyolites, a setting where bonanza grades are not unusual. Several of the drill holes intersected cavities near the mineralized zone, suggesting that the mineralization is filling open spaces; the presence of large open cavities is an essential condition for the formation of bonanza-style epithermal mineralization.
The silver occurs as silver sulphide and in a number of sulphosalt minerals, and also as the native metal or as electrum alloyed with some gold. Mineralogical work to date suggests the silver minerals can all be recovered using conventional flotation.
Yamana has been using its in-house laboratory in Santa Cruz and sending check samples to independent laboratories in Santiago, Chile, and Tucson, Ariz.
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