History of the Catanava Project The story of Excalibur's Catanava project begins in 1546 with mining at Pinos as one of only three bonanza gold districts discovered by the Spanish in Mexico. The Spanish discovered a lot of bonanza silver but only Pinos and two other districts were bonanza gold deposits.
There are over 50 shafts in good to excellent condition in the Old Pinos District.
The average gold grade produced by the Cornish mining operations was over 30 grams per ton. Most of the bonanzas and good grade veins were only mined to the then water table at 90-110 meter depth, but one mine installed a Cornish water pump and was still in the bonanza at 330 meters depth when the mine was forced to close in 1910.
Reports from the time of the Cornish mining never separated the bonanza grades from the overall grades of bonanza ore plus regular vein ore; however, they mined out almost all the main veins from the surface to at least the water table for kilometers and the overall grades were 60 grams per ton gold, so, the bonanzas were indeed rich.
In total, from 1546 to 1975, there were around 3 million tons of veins mined, yielding over 5 million ounces of gold and over 25 million ounces of silver, that equates to an average of just under 52 gpt Gold and 260 gpt Silver being mined from the bonanza veins.
There were even some big names involved with the Catanava Project. Prior to Excalibur Resources, a number of companies optioned the properties and worked on them. The most significant of these Hecla Mining Co. (1996-1997) which spent $2 million exploring Pinos but they wanted an open pit, heap-leach project and decided to drop the option. The most recent company to work the property was Romarco (2006-7) but they soon focused their attention on their Haile discovery in South Carolina, US.
Catanava not only has the richest of the 18 (known) bonanzas worked by the Spanish and Cornish miners, but recent exploration and development has uncovered several virgin bonanzas and at least 12 other excellent bonanza possibilities; small hand samples from some of the small mines have run up to several hundred ounces per ton of gold.
Twelve or more of the major veins (plus numerous minor gold bearing veins) are continuous through the Catanava block. The entire Catanava block is a bonanza project. Veins are known to at least 250 m of depth.
The property has a good 120 meter shaft plus 4 excellent 60-90 meter shafts all ready for outfitting and production.
Catanava has the highest undeveloped grades in the district plus it has four known and over a dozen potential bonanza ore bodies.
The Catanava block is believed to have over 1,000,000 tons of high-grade reserves plus Catanava has the four known bonanza ore bodies being developed, with several ounces per ton gold, and substantial evidence of at least a dozen other bonanza bodies in the block that were missed by the old-time miners.
FANTOMAS