Mr. John R. Wilson, President and CEO of Estrella commented, "Given the historical data and the amount of excellent work performed by Mines Management during its option period, the Company is excited to get the La Estrella Project back. The mineral system at La Estrella is quite large, and we feel that it has significant upside tonnage potential. Estrella will now actively move ahead on advancing the project and initially, we will focus on reviewing the data compiled by Mines Management over the past 2 years."
La Estrella Project
La Estrella property is comprised of approximately 2,200 hectares of land within the Central Peru Polymetallic Belt, and is located 130 km south of Huancayo in the Department of Huancavelica, a region with a history of silver mining dating to the 1500’s. The Project is in an area of established infrastructure, with roads and electricity, and lies within 30 km of Minera Buenaventura’s historic Julcani Silver Mine which began operation in 1955.
Exploration of La Estrella
In 2012, eight diamond drill holes totaling approximately 2,700 meters were completed, seven of which intercepted significant thicknesses of gold and silver mineralization (see News Release September 13, 2012). These intercepts expanded the historically known area of mineralization toward greater depths on the west and southwest side of the project’s 2012 area of interest.
Because a strong positive correlation between higher grade gold mineralization and moderate to high values of chargeability had previously been demonstrated on La Estrella Project, a 3-D Induced-Polarization/Resistivity survey by Val D’Or Geophysics Peru was contracted in December 2012 to February 2013 to provide indications of mineralized trends and directions useful for exploration.
The survey identified a large, previously unknown area of anomalous chargeability extending north and northwest from the 2012 area of interest for a distance of approximately 1,400 meters. This new area, when combined with previously known areas of anomalous chargeability, forms a prospective zone over 2,000 meters in N-S extent and up to 1,100 meters in E-W extent.
La Estrella Geology and Mineralization
La Estrella concessions cover a large area of gold-silver mineralization hosted by a thick west-dipping dacite sill beneath a sequence of andesitic volcanic rocks. Gold mineralization occurs as pyrite-associated disseminations in silicified and phylically-altered dacite; also as quartz-sulfide stockworks in brecciated or structurally-disrupted andesitic rocks.
Higher-grade silver intervals (>100 gpt) occur with galena and a variety of sulfosalts in mineralized structures cutting the dacite sill and volcanic package, reflecting an event later than the more widespread gold-silver dacite-hosted mineralization.
To date, historic and current sampling and drilling activities have identified a roughly tabular zone of mineralization generally conformable to the dacite sill over 1,500 meters in strike length, 300-500 meters in width, and 50-150 meters thick.
Geophysical indications of mineralization include this known area and extend across a strike length of 2,000 meters and up to 1,100 meters width in the central portion of the deposit. The system remains open to the north, south, west, and at depth in the central, widest portion of the anomalous zone.
