Focus Ventures has received the approval from the Peruvian Ministry of Energy and Mines for the commencement of drilling at its Chucara Gold-Silver Project in Peru.
Currently, the company is arranging for mobilization of a drill rig, and the drill program will be initiated as soon as the rig is on site.
The company also said that a high-resolution geophysical survey has been completed over the property.
Focus is exploring for a high-grade gold, silver and base metals deposit at Chucara within a system of intermediate sulphidation-type epithermal veins, which are located within a northwest-southeast corridor with high-grade Au-Ag mineralization sampled at surface over at least 2km.
The 700 ha property covers most of an historic Ag-Au (Pb-Zn) mine, and the untested south-eastern extension of the mineralization.
Focus’s drilling will test for deep feeder targets and disseminated mineralization.
A CSAMT geophysical survey (which measures resistivity and conductivity contrasts) completed by Quantec Geoscience mapped the down dip and strike extensions of the polymetallic sulphide-bearing veins, which hosts the gold and silver mineralization at Chucara.
The program mapped a strong conductor averaging approximately 4ohm-ms, most probably associated with massive sulphide mineralization and the down dip extensions of known mineralization under the steeply dipping Wenses, Maria and Consuzo veins located on the northern edge of the property.
The anomalies commence immediately below the projection of the old workings at a depth of approximately 150m and intensify to their maximum of (less than)1 ohm-ms at a depth of approximately 500m below surface.
The anomaly was traced over four consecutive lines for an approximate strike length of 300m.
At the southern end of the property in the Chip-Chip, Confianza and the Esperanza zones, a relatively flat zone of moderately high conductivity averaging approximately 30ohm-ms, was mapped 100m to 150m below surface and parallel to the ‘stacked’ mineralized veins mapped on surface.