International Northair Mines (INM-V)is exp-anding a drill program at its La Cigarra silver project innorth-central Mexico by 3,000 metres after intersecting 80 metres of123.5 grams silver per tonne in February. The program will target a 3-kmtrend hosting three separate mineralized zones, all of which remainopen along strike and downdip.
On March 31, the company released the final four assays of the six-hole, 1,500-metre drill program completed in February.
A notable hit was 53.7 metres of 87.1 grams silver, extending the strike length of the main San Gregorio zone by 100 metres.
Morepromising, however, are assays from the less-explored Las Carolinaszone. Core drilling there returned 48 metres of 140.6 grams silver,including a 22.1-metre section of 263 grams silver.
"The resultsfrom these two zones, along with the intervening 1.1 km of untestedground, provide excellent immediate upside exploration potential," saidpresident and CEO Fred Hewett in a prepared statement.
Northair's latest drill program will focus mainly on San Gregorio, but will also include Las Carolinas and the La Borracha zone.
InternationalNorthair is the ancient flagship of Vancouver mining promoter DonMcLeod and his son Bruce. The company first listed in the 1960s asNorthair Mines but has been exploring for Mexican epithermal silverdeposits since at least the early 1990s. Over the years, it has rolledback its shares just once, on a 1-to-5 basis in 1991, and now has 61.7million shares outstanding. Both McLeods are still on the board today,however Hewett now handles most of the day-to-day operations.
Formore than 20 years, North-air's stock has poked its dogged head above$1 only a handful of times. It has joint ventured or explored at least14 Mexican projects, including several promising joint-ventures withmajor mining companies such as Teck Resources (TCK-T, TCK-N) and Yamana Gold(YRI-T, AUY-N), which eventually came to naught. Today only threeprojects remain - La Cigarra, El Reventon and Sierra Rosario - thoughexploration has largely stopped at the latter two.
The companyoptioned La Cigarra in April 2009 from private vendors; it paid US$5,000upfront and agreed to pay another US$445,000 over five years for aroyalty-free, 100% interest.
The 3.4-sq.-km property comprisesseven concessions home to dozens of small- to medium-sized old workings.The company says there is no evidence of any modern explorationpreviously carried out on the project.
La Cigarra lies withinwhat Northair believes is a prospective geological belt on the easternflanks of the Sierra Madre Occidental in Chihuahua state. Theepithermal, low-sulphidation silver mineralization occurs within alteredrhyolite intrusives and sediments, including shale, siltstone andsandstone.
The company has so far delineated three mineralizedzones at La Cigarra, along a northwest-southeast trend. San Gregorio,the central zone, hosts the highest grades and best exploration resultsto date, followed by Las Carolinas
1 km to the southeast and La
Borracha 1 km to the northwest.
Samplingat the zones in late 2009 returned up to 1,900 grams silver and led toan initial 1,500-metre reverse-circulation (RC) drill program in spring2010. The RC drilling hit 32 metres of 132.4 grams silver at SanGregorio, 10.7 metres of 172.5 grams silver at Las Carolinas and 7.6metres of 68 grams silver at La Borracha. Anomalous, low-grade gold wasalso found in most of the holes.
To confirm silver values andexpand geological knowledge of the property, Northair began a1,500-metre follow-up core drill program in November 2010. It focused onstep-out and deeper drilling at Las Carolinas and San Gregorio, andassays from the first two drill holes (including 80 metres of 123.5grams silver) sent Northair's stock up to 42¢ from 15¢ on 22.5 millionshares traded.
The company then closed a $5.3-million privateplacement comprising 17.1 million units at 30¢ apiece, 7.5 million ofwhich were bought by Sprott Asset Management, a resource fund managed bywell-known investor Eric Sprott.
Northair shares were tradingat 10¢ in February and on March 31 - the day the latest assays werereleased - its shares closed at 61¢ on heavy volume of 5.15 millionshares traded.