TORONTO, Oct. 10, 2012 /CNW/ - Gran Colombia Gold Corp. (TSX: GCM) is pleased to announce drilling results from the latest underground drill hole in the deep zone at its Marmato Project in Colombia. Highlights from hole MT-1500 include 1.6 grams per tonne of gold and 1.5 grams per tonne of silver over 618 meters of drilling. The hole also includes 16.9 meters with 35.2 grams per tonne of gold, with a 1.8 meter section containing 159 grams per tonne of gold, from a depth of 872 metres. This deep high-grade mineralization is mainly associated with a zone with several narrow quartz veins, sub-parallel to the core axis, with a true width of about 4.4 meters, which shows several specks of visible gold throughout the interval.
The conclusion of the current deep zone drilling program at Marmato has produced a number of deep gold intersections, which extend mineralization trends to approximately 700 metres below the limit of the current preliminary pit outline and is open at depth. The deep mineralization is a minimum of 200 metres wide and widens to over 600 meters with depth and is open along strike in both directions. Please refer to Attachment 1 to this press release for an illustrative geological cross section, a copy of which is also available on Gran Colombia's website at www.grancolombiagold.com.
Serafino Iacono, Executive Co-Chairman of Gran Colombia Gold, commented: "The results of this latest drilling reached over 700 meters below the current estimated lower limit of our open pit option and indicate a second zone of mineralization forming a deep body that could be suitable for underground mining. Combined with over 14 million ounces of gold in our current Mineral Resource Estimate, the Marmato Project is one of the richest undeveloped gold projects in the world. Gran Colombia continues to explore the significance of the deep zone mineralization and its impact on the work undertaken in the pre-feasibility study, which is expected to be completed later this year."
This new zone contains approximately 300 million tonnes of potential mineralization[1], and is not currently represented in the current total resource estimate at Marmato. The current Mineral Resource Estimate for the Company's Marmato Project, prepared by SRK Consulting (UK) Ltd. and filed on SEDAR on August 7, 2012, contains 11.8 million ounces of gold in the Measured and Indicated categories and an additional 2.6 million ounces of gold in the Inferred category, at a cut-off grade of 0.3 g/t gold, and 80.3 million ounces of silver in the Measured and Indicated categories and an additional 9.4 million ounces of silver in the Inferred category (see table below).