Excellon starts 25,000 m drill program at La Platosa Excellon starts 25,000 m drill program at La Platosa
2016-08-17 08:29 AT - News Release
Mr. Brendan Cahill reports
EXCELLON RESUMES DRILLING AT LA PLATOSA
Excellon Resources Inc. has commenced an initial 25,000-metre diamond drilling program at its 100-per-cent-owned La Platosa property in Durango, Mexico, where the company has been mining since 2005.
Outlook for Platosa drill program:
- Initial focus on massive sulphide targets near existing mine infrastructure that may be accessed by operations with minimal development (estimated 6,000 metres of drilling);
- Subsequent focus on near-surface massive sulphide targets near the Platosa mine with the aim of discovering new manto deposits near Platosa (estimated 13,000 metres);
- Continuing exploration and drilling of carbonate replacement deposit (CRD) source targets (estimated 6,000 metres);
- Cutting-edge analysis of historical geophysical data by Geotech Ltd. under way and expected to identify previously invisible, regional CRD/source targets.
"We are incredibly excited to be back exploring Platosa again," stated John Sullivan, vice-president, exploration:
"We have conducted minimal drilling to expand Platosa manto resources since 2011 and the area near the Platosa mine itself remains wide open for the discovery of new mantos both laterally and at depth.
Additionally, we are revisiting the geophysical data collected at Platosa from 2006 to 2011 with the help of Geotech.
With today's much faster processing power, along with the cutting-edge application of neural networking and artificial intelligence, we hope to obtain an entirely new perspective on exploration at Platosa.
We remain convinced that the Platosa mantos are merely the edge of a much larger CRD system."
The Platosa mine exploits a series of very high-grade, closely spaced, CRD silver, lead, zinc manto deposits located within the prolific Mexican CRD belt. CRDs are intrusive-related, sulphide-dominant lead, zinc, silver, copper and often gold-rich deposits that commonly occur in clusters associated with major regional geologic features.
The Mexican CRD belt is perhaps the world's best-developed CRD cluster and Platosa lies in the centre of the northwest-southeast-trending axis of the largest deposits of the belt.
A spectrum of CRD mineralized bodies exists, ranging from distal flat-lying to subhorizontal manto massive sulphide bodies, such as those being mined at Platosa through medial subvertical chimneys to proximal disseminated to patchy-sulphide skarns such as those discovered in 2012 at Rincon Del Caido near the Platosa mantos.
Such skarn bodies are generally associated with unmineralized or porphyry-type intrusive bodies. Transitions of deposit morphology and mineralogy, and alteration zoning, can be used as tools to trace mantos into chimneys, sulphides into skarn or skarn into intrusive contact deposits.
The company's drilling plan calls for a minimum of 25,000 metres with a second rig to be added in early fourth quarter. The focus will be on the following high-priority targets/target areas, but will be modified as results dictate:
- The majority of currently planned drilling will target the discovery of additional limestone-hosted high-grade massive sulphide manto mineralization. Significant potential remains for new manto discoveries as the deposit area is open in several directions away from the mine and there are also smaller areas closer to the known mantos that could host additional massive sulphides readily accessible from existing underground infrastructure.
- The program will also target intrusive-related, large-tonnage, proximal skarn-style source sulphide CRD mineralization. This proximal mineralization is often high tonnage and the company believes that the mineralization discovered at Rincon, less than one kilometre northwest of the Platosa mine (see press release dated July 9, 2012), represents the margin of such a large system. In addition to carrying important values of silver, lead and zinc, the Rincon mineralization hosts anomalous gold, including up to 13.07 grams per tonne over 7.25 metres in hole EXLP12-1038. The Rincon system may be related to the Platosa mantos or an entirely separate system, further enhancing the discovery potential of the property.
- Finally, and as further discussed in the company's second quarter management's discussion and analyis, the company is working with Geotech, a highly regarded and innovative Canadian geophysical contractor and specialized service provider, on a compilation and reinterpretation of a large portion of the company's geophysical data, particularly the gravity, airborne magnetics and ZTEM airborne survey flown by Geotech in 2010. Employing enhanced and/or new software and far superior computing power than were available to the industry until recently, this work has already identified areas of the 21,000-hectare Platosa property that merit additional work and drill testing. The company expects to provide an update on results from the completed Geotech study in due course.
Qualified person
John Sullivan, BSc, PGeo, Excellon's vice-president of exploration, has acted as the qualified person, as defined in National Instrument 43-101, with respect to the disclosure of the scientific and technical information contained in this press release.
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